2 Repos, in BK, need a car

[Spaghetti42]

Hello all,

Filed BK on Dec 23, 341 meeting is scheduled for Feb 11. If everything goes well my discharge will happen in April.

My POS Dodge Caravan died the week before filing and I have since sold it to a junkyard. I have been driving my boyfriend's car (luckily we live together and he's not working so I have that available to me) but he needs his car so he can start working (public transit here is a joke). I have been putting money aside and will also throw my tax refund at my car fund. However, I have 2 repossessions that are included in the BK. I was planning on saving up about $3k and buying a car outright but I am kinda sick of buying beaters which end up needing repairs that are more than the stupid thing is worth. But I also don't want to incur new debt right out of the gate. So this is my dilemma.

I guess what I'm looking for is some advice and maybe some courses of action that I had not considered, since I am obviously not very good with this stuff :-)

[joshuagraham]

There is no easy way out of this dilemma. The price to pay for not being forced to buy & drive a beater is to put up the ca$h. If your needs are modest, I would look into the dirt cheapest new car (or a certified used version of it). I wouldn't sweat so much about being able to get a loan - if you put down 25%, someone will lend to you at not a very bad rate at all (~ 8%).

Doing a quick search, it looks like the bargain basement new cars are going for about $13K total, so one a few years old should be in 4 digit territory. You will not get a lot of "soccer mom" space, nor "fahrvergnügen", but you can get something quite reliable.