If you're done working and in ER, do you still have "your" car?
Had an interesting conversation with a (still working) shipmate the other day. He wanted to know who our Prius belonged to-- me or my spouse. We said we'd bought it mainly to handle a third driver (our teen) and to be ready for the sudden death of one of our other cars (aged 11 and nearly 15 years).
He said that he asked because a few months ago he'd totaled his old car and bought a new one. However he was a bit disgruntled because his (also still working spouse) liked the new car better than her "old" car and you married veterans can predict what happened next. So he was wondering-- when our kid left for college, who'd take over the Prius?
This question never even occurred to us. Sure, when we were working we each had "our" car, preloaded according to our duty survival needs, and we practically lived out of them some days. Now in ER we don't feel any particular ownership. If we're running errands we take the more fuel-efficient car. If we're hauling then we take the bigger vehicle. When our teen leaves for college (~820 more days!) then we can probably go down to just one car. But he couldn't believe that we didn't have "his" and "hers" cars.
We're keeping our Taurus wagon for now, but I can see that its days are limited. Unbelievably the Prius hauls almost as much and gets nearly 3x the gas mileage. We haven't even driven the Taurus in nearly two weeks and I can see that I'm going to have to worry about dead batteries and rusty gas tanks. All this for a vehicle with a $1495 bluebook value.
Spouse wants to leave the Taurus spotted on the ready, loaded for [-]bombing missions[/-] yardwork & repairs at the rental house. (At least that way I can deduct its $425 annual insurance on Schedule E.) I think we have more than enough material possessions to keep track of and in running condition. But like any experienced spouse I'm hoping that the Taurus has some type of catastrophic failure before we have to revisit the "keep it or shoot it" decision.
Had an interesting conversation with a (still working) shipmate the other day. He wanted to know who our Prius belonged to-- me or my spouse. We said we'd bought it mainly to handle a third driver (our teen) and to be ready for the sudden death of one of our other cars (aged 11 and nearly 15 years).
He said that he asked because a few months ago he'd totaled his old car and bought a new one. However he was a bit disgruntled because his (also still working spouse) liked the new car better than her "old" car and you married veterans can predict what happened next. So he was wondering-- when our kid left for college, who'd take over the Prius?
This question never even occurred to us. Sure, when we were working we each had "our" car, preloaded according to our duty survival needs, and we practically lived out of them some days. Now in ER we don't feel any particular ownership. If we're running errands we take the more fuel-efficient car. If we're hauling then we take the bigger vehicle. When our teen leaves for college (~820 more days!) then we can probably go down to just one car. But he couldn't believe that we didn't have "his" and "hers" cars.
We're keeping our Taurus wagon for now, but I can see that its days are limited. Unbelievably the Prius hauls almost as much and gets nearly 3x the gas mileage. We haven't even driven the Taurus in nearly two weeks and I can see that I'm going to have to worry about dead batteries and rusty gas tanks. All this for a vehicle with a $1495 bluebook value.
Spouse wants to leave the Taurus spotted on the ready, loaded for [-]bombing missions[/-] yardwork & repairs at the rental house. (At least that way I can deduct its $425 annual insurance on Schedule E.) I think we have more than enough material possessions to keep track of and in running condition. But like any experienced spouse I'm hoping that the Taurus has some type of catastrophic failure before we have to revisit the "keep it or shoot it" decision.