When should you replace your old car?
This article was written by Larry Jones, Pastor of Stewardship at First Baptist Church of Raytown, Missouri, and writes regularly for his own blog at RichChristianPoorChristian.com.
When should you ditch the beater?
If you're seriously working a plan to get out of debt, there's a good chance you own a beater. Wikipedia defines a beater as a vehicle, typically a car, that is in very poor condition, or that has been modified in a crude or ugly fashion, but remains in use.
The difficulty with owning a beater is that it usually takes a lot of TLC and regular repairs, and now with the government's "Cash for Clunkers" incentive, more and more people are ditching their beaters for new cars.
When you start racking up too many repairs in a short amount of time, you begin to question whether or not you should dump your car for something (hopefully) better. I recently ran into this problem with my paid for 14-year old car, a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. Last year, I really didn't have very many problems with the car, but I had invested $400-500 in new tires which I rotate on a regular basis to make them last as long as possible. This year has been a whole different story altogether, and I have paid out over $3,000 in long-overdue routine maintenance and one major breakdown repair. The major breakdown repair is the one bill that I seriously began to question whether it was time to ditch my car.
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