My 14-year-old son doesn't have a manipulative bone in his body, yet his argument was startlingly persuasive. Allow me to explain.
The house in Texas has sold, my year-long divorce is final (allowing all proceeds from the sale of the house to be distributed), and I'm living on 50% salary for the next 5 years. Without mentioning any of that to my son, I exclaimed I thought it best to buy our Elise in five years time.
"That's what I was afraid of," he replied.
He then explains (rather maturely for his age I thought) how much fun it would be to ride around town and go to events with his old man during his high school years instead of waiting until he was "more grown up" with the possibility of college or work - potentially out-of-state - where he wouldn't have the time he has now to enjoy this period of his life with me. He just thought it would be "more fun" to do this sooner rather than later given the time we spend together these days.
I will admit to being taken completely by surprise, and honestly can't think of any rebuttal to his reasoning.
I have only one more divorce-incurred debt I need to address, then it will be time.
I'm obviously looking for inexpensive over pristine, so it doesn't need to be perfect (or even pretty, really) it needs to be mechanically sound (we're going to learn to work on it ourselves together), and Kansas DMV allows registration of salvage title. So I'm pretty much open for the best deal I can find, and I wouldn't think of doing anything without you guys weighing in when we find it.
Thanks so much.