Trading a Jet and Debt for My Soul.

Yeah yeah, I know. It's been 10 days and I said "tomorrow." Didn't your mother ever tell you that tomorrow never comes.

*****

Ten years. That was the long term driving plan when I bought my spanky new black diesel Jetta in February 2001.

For about a year now, Jed stops in at the Chevy dealer around the corner from our house two or three times a month and gets the latest details on a new car for his mom. I cannot imagine how much the company has invested in promotional material that gets dragged home and sits on my counter for a few days while I endure the obsessive rantings of how great a new Malibu would be. Or a Hummer. Get a Hummer, Mom.

It doesn't matter how often I explain there is nothing wrong with my Jetta. I still like it. I put fuel in it every second month and I make no monthly payments. Every time I have this conversation with Jed I get more and more convinced that the 10-year plan was crazy. I am nearing the 9-year mark and started to think that a 15-year plan would be quite reasonable.

Then sometime around Christmas, every time I started out from a stop the car would feel like it was spinning out. When it was happening on dry pavement I knew something was amiss. I made Albert drive it and he confirmed the transmission was slipping. And it seemed to get worse day by day.

So off to the VW doctor we went.

Saving you all the boring mechanical details, after a quick check-up we were informed it needed a $6100 transmission job.

We took it to an independant tranny shop and they confirmed it - but offered to do it for $4200. But still. Forty two hundred dollars!

Albert had given me the news as I sat setting up my new computer. "Damn," I thought. What ever possessed me to order a new computer and camera. And why did I order the extra RAM. And the designer camera bag.

Sometimes my financial smarts ain't so smart.

The only solution I could see was to go test driving new vehicles.

"Huh?" was the only response I got from my husband as I turned and suggested we leave right now, in the middle of installing Windows on my new computer, to try out a Kia Soul.

"Let's go now, while my car is still in the shop so I can't make any rash decisions."

Uh yeah. Like testing driving a vehicle isn't a rash decision when only days ago you ranted on to your son how you were keeping your car for at least three more years.

Well, I fell in love with the Soul. The monthly payment scared the poop outta me though.

In the end, I had no option but to fix the Jetta. And now that I have $4200 invested in it, I really should drive it for a couple more years. However, I still love the Soul. And the Jetta has become unofficially in "for sale" mode.

If someone comes along and offers me enough for it, I trust I'll become the key a$$hole driving a Kia Soul makin' monthly payments again.

I test drove the black one. (of course)

But I really liked the green one too.