7 Calls in 2 Hours, or How We Bought a Car for $25

So last weekend my husband is out in our front yard, waxing our vintage Land Rover that we've been trying to sell for over a year, when our next-door neighbor (we'll call him Mr. V.) stops by. He's driving his 1990 Honda Civic Wagon. The menfolk chat a bit, look at each other's cars, scratch their bellies, etc. Turns out Mr. V. wants to sell his car. Hubby yells inside that I need to come out and see something. I come out, gasp at how adorable this car is (it really is!), gasp again at the thought of possibly owning it, exclaim over the perfect timing (my car, a family hand-me-down, had just weeks before begun to give us trouble...transmission, etc...stuff we didn't wanna put money into fixing cause the car hadn't been taken care of for pretty much its whole life anyway...yadda yadda yadda), go for a little test drive (it's a stick-shift!), and basically fall in love on the spot. I fall harder when Mr. V. tells us it gets 30 mpg in the city! Essentially we tell him we're very interested, and he goes home saying he hadn't really thought about an asking price yet, but he'll get back to us.

Mr. V. knocks on our door less than an hour later. Tells hubby the Blue Book for the car is $900, but considering his needs a new battery, the automatic seatbelts aren't really automatic anymore, and a few other minor things, he says he couldn't ask more than $500 for it. Yes, our jaws dropped. Anyway, we discuss it, decide it's a great deal, figure out we can get by until payday even if we buy it right away, so we go for it.

When we actually go next door to do the transaction, Mr. V. insists he won't take more than $475 because the car's gas tank is on Empty!

And now I am the proud owner of this cute little nerdy car, puttering all around town in it and loving it. Yay! (Pics will be coming soon!) Great story, right? Wait, it gets better.

Yesterday I listed my old car on Craigslist. At 5:55 p.m., just before I left work. I listed it for $550 so we'd have bargaining room, and I explained that it had been a reliable daily driver for me, but it definitely needed some work. I put my hubby's phone number in the ad. Before I even got home and told him I had listed it, he had gotten a call about it--someone wanting to come see it today. Before we finished making dinner, he'd gotten 3 more calls from folks wanting to come see the car. And then 3 more, with one guy wanting to come see it right away! So the guy came, saw the car, paid $450 cash on the spot, and that is how we essentially paid $25 for a car! Three cheers for Craigslist!!