I guess I didn’t mention it on this blog, but near the beginning of August our car just up and died! My mother in law was driving it when a plug or something fell out of the transmission and all the transmission fluids came out in one big gush.
After having the car towed to the garage and trying to have it fixed we learned that the transmission casing was pitted and that we’d need a new transmission. Since our car was 14 years old we couldn’t see putting close to $3000 into the car so … we bit the bullet and decided to buy another car.
I guess we could have leased a new car or looked around for a really good financing deal on a new car, but we decided to get a used car.
The new used car is a 2006 Pontiac Pursuit – very similar to the Pontiac G5’s.
I guess we’ve had our new vehicle for about two weeks and so far so good. We love driving it and it seems to have great gas mileage.
Oh and when we called our insurance company to get our car insurance changed from the old car to the new car our rates actually went down a little bit. Not much … but a few dollars a month. I think when our new contract starts in January it will be about $10 a month lower.
Oh and when we were talking to our insurance agent he had some ideas for lowering our home insurance costs too (we have home and car insurance with the same company because combining the two offers a further discount at some insurance companies) so now we’re paying approximately $10 less a month on our home insurance as well.
So when everything kicks in next year we’ll be saving more than $20 a month on our car and home insurance thanks to
1. getting a newer car
2. having a clean driving record
3. never having made any claims on our car or house and
4. making a couple of simple changes like upping the deductible on our home insurance from $500 to $1000
My husband and I are smokers (yes shame on us), however, we’re planning on quitting in September. We mentioned this to our insurance agent and he said to let them know when we quit as they offer a smoke free discount. We can get an additional 3% off our home insurance.
It might be worth calling your home and or car insurance company to see if they have any ideas as to how you might save a few more dollars each month on your coverage. I know we’re happy with our additional savings because our bills just went way up what with the new (used) car payments we’re going to be making each month, so any way we can save money or cut costs – all the better!
Getting a new car is so exciting!! I always find though that no matter what, car ins goes up whenever you get a new car, or is that just me?!?
Its defiantly worth checking out b/c every little bit of savings helps. I never thought to combine my house and car insurance. This alone should get me some savings. Thanks
Great tips and pleased for you that you saved so much money. I must say I have car insurance with one provider and home insurance with another so should really look into any discount I may get if I go with the same provider for both.
These are some really good ideas. Keep up the good work!
Should I say congratulations either for what happened to your car? He he! It’s so nice to know that you had a good decision on what car to buy after your first car had broken. I am in the planning of getting a used car as well, not much used for traveling instead for picking up my kids at school. Thank you for giving tips! Shame on me also because smoking is my addiction too. I hope I can get away with that so I can lower my car insurance as well. Thanks for this informative post!