Need financial advice

[jnorion]

OK, so you guys know I've decided to sell the Protege because I can't afford it anymore. This puts me in a sticky situation.

I bought my car new last July. Since then I have driven it a little over 15,000 miles. Right now I owe $13,400 on my loan, but the car is only worth $10,200 private party (from KBB) or considerably less on trade in. I have put new suspension in it and am giving my snow tires with it, but that's not really going to equal the $3,000 difference. In this area I would have a very hard time finding someone who would even buy it for that price (I live in a world of AWD Subarus and big trucks), but even if I did, I seriously doubt banks would approve a loan for that much over the listed value.

I have already bought a new (old) car for $650 that will replace the pro as soon as I sell it, but since I have to keep insurance on the pro I'm driving it until it's gone. I thought about selling it for blue book price and then just paying off the difference, but I don't have great credit right now so I'm not eligible for a personal loan and I've already asked family members and they can't help me right now.

I have advertised around town here and my mom has also put flyers up in her town, and after having them up for two weeks I haven't gotten a single phone call.

I thought about just giving the car back to the bank and taking the black mark on my credit rating, but it's not really worth it because I'd end up having to pay the difference anyway.

At this point I'm stuck, I don't know how to keep my car or get rid of it. I need suggestions: how can I sell it for what I owe, or how can I make up the difference if I sell it for less, or who wants to give me $13k so I can just pay it off and keep it?

[Iceman112k3]

wanna know something? you now owna 650$ car. have you checked the book value of that car? bet you could get more then you paid for it. I know a guy here buys cars cheap and sells them oiver again to amke money. secondly what doe your job pay? maybe you can find a better paying one. the problem with the listed/laon vlaue you have is big, you cant afford to really jsut sell adn loose 3 G's so ... I dunno.

[jnorion]

Book value on the $650 car is higher than that, but the problem is just that I can't afford to keep the Mazda as things are. I'm counting on the cheap car to fix my overall problems, not just give me a couple months delay on the crunch.

I live in a ****hole college town in north Idaho. In this town you either have a master's degree or higher, or you work a minimum wage ($5.15/hour here) service job. I'm lucky enough that I have a service job that makes tips as well, but working 35 hours a week I don't even quite make $1000 a month. And that's the best job I can get around here. I can't afford to move right now because my car payment, insurance, and daycare bills are too high... therefore I want to keep the cheap car and sell the expensive car, save some money, and get the hell out of this area.

[MisterT]

I was in kind of the same predicament. My grandmother gave up her car, a crap Ford Taurus with very low miles. It was a 91 with 40K miles on it. I tried selling the Pro and got a couple of calls on it. One girl even test drove it and swore up and down that she was going to buy it. That fell through and as far as trading it, I owed more, so there would be equity on it, so I ended up selling the Taurus (which sold surprisingly fast) and made around $2k or so (not exactly sure). Any way, I am stuck with the Pro for 3 more years and 4 months. What I owe and what it is worth is a joke. You can try AutoTrader and they will advertise until it is sold for a little more than whatever the price for advertising for a couple of weeks. I did that and it didn't work, but you may get lucky. If you are that bad off financially, you may have to take a loss by knocking off so much and paying the bank off being in debt by $2 or 3 grand.

[jnorion]

I don't even know how to make that work though... the bank already told me they wouldn't give me an unsecured loan for the difference, and since they have the title I have to pay it off completely before I can turn it over to someone else, which means I have to come up with the difference from somewhere else BEFORE I sell it. I tried to borrow money from my parents and grandparents but they're all getting screwed right now because the economy is bad and so they can't help me. Is there another way that I don't know about?

[Iceman112k3]

have you considered prostitution? just kidding

Umm do you ahve a financial adviser? here in nova scotia we ahve tehm for free at the banks maybe you can come up with a plan so that you can figure this out right. how close are you with making your monthly payments on your car?

[jnorion]

I wouldn't get very far with prostitution, but I thought about running the idea by my girlfriend...

I hadn't thought about an advisor. I don't know if there's any specific free advisor around here, but I am on friendly terms with a few of the people at the bank so I could ask them, at least informally.

How close I am to my payment sort of depends on what you mean. The problem is not so much the monthly bill as the overall picture. I was unemployed for a little over two months this winter and so now I'm behind on paying bills and I've maxed out my credit cards. If I could get the rest of it under control I could make my car payment, but I can't take care of the rest while I'm worrying about paying the car, etc. Basically I need a lot of money NOW, or I need to get rid of a lot of my monthly expenses and slowly get myself out of trouble.

[Lil Freek]

i don't know how big your town is... but most cities have underground cab companies...
if you need some extra cashflow, that's one way. you can make like $200 a week for about 16 hours of work.
you'll have to deal with a few strange people.. but for the money, it's well worth it.