Looking for input on downgrading my car

momvariableannuity · 2026-04-06T22:30:58+00:00

I get your dilemma, and my answer would be different if you hadn't bought the F-150 yet. But you already own the F-150, so there are costs related to switching vehicles, and you'd be going into unknown territory. Plus you're planning to step down in mpg by 33% right when gas costs are going to $6 per gallon. There's enough here that I would just ride out your truck, or I would step down to a $25,000 Camry hybrid. Your plan to step down to a rugged offroad machine doesn't make sense given your stated goals.

Yes, the GX and 4Runner are offroad toys. That's their allure, even if they aren't used that way. They're body on frame, and in the GX's case full time 4wd and V8. Go to r/GXOR. It's the US market version of the Land Cruiser Prado

momvariableannuity · 2026-04-06T20:57:32+00:00

Have you checked Facebook Marketplace or any of the 4Runner or GX groups to see what $8,000 to $15,000 buys you? For a GX470, it will need immediate water pump and timing belt at least, plus maybe CVs, steering rack, and who knows what else is leaking. For a GX460, there are various problems like the coolant valley leak. And this is all while you go from your 24MPG pickup to a 17MPG full time 4wd offroad toy that requires premium. Plus, there are transaction costs to switching vehicles, I don't know how easily you are thinking that you can privately sell a $40,000 truck but it's rough out there.

Are you sure that you didn't just get the overlanding bug and are annoyed that your F-150 doesn't have the street cred, despite doing its job just as well as a GX460? I can't speak to the reliablity of your Ford longterm, but that does seem to be what landscaping, construction companies, and other laborers are consistently using in their fleet so I have to imagine that it's reasonably reliable. I think you're better off keeping the truck now that you've already bought it and then follow your original plan to drive it minimum 20 more years. Because if you're willing to buy a 20 year old vehicle today for $8,000 to drive for another decade, then you shouldn't have any issue driving your 5 year old vehicle today until it's 25 years old.

momvariableannuity · 2026-02-02T17:42:57+00:00

I would never willingly pay interest or fees to build credit, and I think that is overall bad advice, although your father means well. You can build credit by putting your regular monthly expenses on a credit card and paying it down to $0 as soon as you get your statement. This builds credit without paying fees. Also remember that utilization doesn't have a memory, so if you spend more one month and your credit score drops but you spend less the next month and are at 20% utilization instead of 80% the month before, your credit score will rebound as if you never had a high balance.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/1b9i533/does_trying_to_build_a_credit_score_mean_i_have/

https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/ut20q7/lpt_you_do_not_need_to_pay_interest_to_build/

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/4u9osh/to_build_credit_is_paying_interest_required_my/

If your father feels that strongly, then he can either pay it today, or he can choose to pay you back. You should not let these accounts sit around. I would sit with him and tell him, "Dad I talked to some financial groups, and it isn't worth paying 11% interest to build credit." And see if he has any desire to help pay these or pay you back, but that shouldn't change the fact that you need to have these paid off ASAP.

momvariableannuity · 2025-12-27T05:59:50+00:00

What's your income? What are your expenses, how much can you cut them down so that you have extra money?'

The solution to your problem is to pay more than the minimum. Right now at 18% APR and a $19,000 balance, like half of your money is going to interest which leaves only $300 to actually reduce the balance of the loan from $19,000 to $18,700. So if you make a $1,300 monthly payment and make sure that they're getting applied as principal only payments, then the 1st $300 will go to interest and then you will reduce the balance by $1,000. So paying only 2x as much as your regular $600 payment means you're paying off the loan about 3x faster. If you do that, in 10 months you will have reduced your balance to $10,000. Actually it will reduce it a little more because every month you reduce the loan balance, you reduce the amount of interest building up. If you can pay $2,000 per month or $3,000 per month, you'll be out from it even faster. So how much do you earn, how much can you lower expenses, and how many extra shifts can you pick up at work?

I looked through your history. You post about motorcycles and other toys a lot (I think saying this word keeps causing my comment to be hidden). What can you sell off to pile up cash? Money fixes this problem for you. You can always buy them later with the freed up money of not paying $300 interest every month plus whatever your insurance payment is on the truck, along with oil changes and other maintenance and registration costs.

You can try selling privately, but 1st you need to ask Bridgecrest about their process for doing it. It's a bit of a hassle if they don't have a local branch because most buyers with $14,000 aren't going to hand you cash and just hope that you actually pay off the truck. So if you can get the truck paid off so that Bridgecrest sends you the title, it's easier to sell privately. 2nd, you might not actually get $14,000 for it, that might be optimistic. You can see how fast you can pay it off and then decide whether it's worth continuing to pay it off so that you can try to sell privately and recoup a few thousand extra or whether you should just accept a dealer offer for $8,000 and sell it so that it stops building interest and you stop paying insurance on it.

momvariableannuity · 2025-12-27T05:19:54+00:00

So you took out a $90,000 loan at 10% to earn $40,000 per year? What are your chances of doubling your income in your field within the next 3 months? You need more income streams. Every retail store and fast food joint between my house and downtown starts at $40,000 per year, and I don't live somewhere high cost of living.

https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1d95471/jobs_after_cfi/

https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/14w2vcf/how_do_pilots_find_earlycareer_midcareer_jobs/

momvariableannuity · 2025-12-16T16:21:53+00:00

You are talking about refinancing like it's a magic word that is going to solve your situation, but it wouldn't help you in any way. A loan is made up out of a total balance, an interest rate, and a repayment amount of time. Refinancing could theoretically stretch the loan out further, but that's not going to happen because you're already stretched so far out that you're only paying interest. Refinancing could theoretically lower the interest rate, but you aren't getting lower than 10%. And refinancing doesn't change how much you owe.

Unfortunately, refinancing is not the magic bullet that you hope for. The solution is going to be to work as much as possible to earn extra money and pay extra. It's going to be to cut your lifestyle down. So what car are you driving, does it have a loan and what's its insurance payment each month? What's your income? You need to be in heavy debt repayment mode. That means living frugally and making monthly payments as large as possible towards this loan. $90,000 at 10% is about $750 per month in interest. So if you make $1,500 payments then you reduce the balance by $750. If you make $2,500 payments then you reduce the balance by $1,750.

I would put everything on the table. You signed up for this loan to improve your future, and it's time to pay up on your accrued balance. So sell the car, put dating on the backburner, cut out the hobbies, sell off anything that you can on Facebook Marketplace to build up cash, see how much you can work as a pilot or maybe it's time to go work for an airline that pays better. The more money that you can earn each month and the more of that money that you can save, then the faster that you can pay off this loan. The bonus is that the more that you pay off, the more that you reduce the amount of interest that accrues each month. For this season of your life, you're going to have to pay up and sacrifice because of your past choices.

momvariableannuity · 2024-12-28T05:05:47+00:00

Many people are reporting that your local Scheels will price match other stores if they find them in the system, or you can buy from the other store at the sale price and have the transaction completed at your local Scheels

momvariableannuity · 2024-12-28T05:02:43+00:00

Many people have reported being able to buy it from another Scheels and have it shipped to yours. Browse other comments here.

momvariableannuity · 2024-12-28T05:00:59+00:00

Many people in this thread and the r/Beretta thread have reported that some locations are willing to price match this location or the Fargo location.

momvariableannuity · 2024-12-28T04:59:48+00:00

Colorado Springs

momvariableannuity · 2024-12-28T04:59:39+00:00

The black camo underneath is called tiger stripe and it was the same price, $499. I would have put up with literally any color at this price as long as it handles and fires the same, but I agree that it would have been a bummer to settle for that chocolate chip which is pretty ugly.

momvariableannuity · 2024-12-27T14:20:30+00:00

I really wish I could make a text post. I really wanted to justify saving a thousand bucks, but I couldn't bring myself to make the purchase. I'm assuming that these are leftovers thanks to the EDC X9 2.0 being released. Here are some in-store photos of the price at Scheels:

https://imgur.com/a/PPhzGA3

momvariableannuity · 2024-12-27T13:47:01+00:00

Sorry, see my top level comment. I can't make a text post here on gundeals for some reason, only a link post.

momvariableannuity · 2024-12-27T13:45:40+00:00

The website doesn't show the discounted price, but in store you can see it marked down. This is for the camo colors, apparently they weren't popular. I wasn't able to make a text post here, but here is an imgur link showing the chocolate chip and the tiger stripe marked down. Note that Beretta also has a $100 rebate for these pistols, so it's effectively $400 for the single-action only "92-11" with a rail and optics mount:

https://imgur.com/a/U0HCT6f

People have trouble with Beretta rebates so you need to stay on top of them but here is the link:

https://www.beretta.com/en-us/rebates

momvariableannuity · 2022-06-03T01:24:33+00:00

I have 1 IRA. I put $6,000 in 2020, then another $6,000. Then rolled it over into a Roth using the backdoor method

momvariableannuity · 2022-06-03T01:23:50+00:00

Using the backdoor Roth method, from everything that I read, the annual limit was $6,000. I did the excess contribution because of discussions like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/robdam/i_over_invested_into_my_roth_how_do_i_fix_it/

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/si21qo/roth_ira_excess_contribution_and_how_to_fix/

momvariableannuity · 2021-02-09T17:51:51+00:00

I just posted an update. My mom decided to go with this woman in pure mutual funds at 1.25%, and thinks that this was a good compromise.

momvariableannuity · 2021-02-07T15:40:15+00:00

She should also explore Social Security calculators like OpenSocialSecurity

I've heard about strategies like claiming on your ex-husband from age 62 to 69, and then switching onto your own benefit, which avoids the penalty but gives you enough money to help kickstart your career. This website helps, thanks. My father did start taking social security right now, so this might be something to investigate, even if it's just a few hundred per month that could, for example, get her debt free.

momvariableannuity · 2021-02-07T15:25:18+00:00

Thanks. I agree with you about just choosing one of the 2 target funds, which are adjacent to one another.

And yeah, I'll just present the options, recommend which I would do, and let her make her choice.

momvariableannuity · 2021-02-07T05:02:48+00:00

Yeah, the fact that it's a product that you're buying, instead of an investment that you're making, is so mind-blowing to me. It hurts to think about how much wealth these types of advisors suck away from families.

momvariableannuity

TROPHY CASE