don't need car for 1.5 years- sell or keep?

Xstatic3333

I am really late to this thread, but definitely sell the Prius!  I'm a former Prius owner and they are awesome cars for more than just the environmental reason.  However, they have a self destruct button-if anything goes wrong with the hybrid battery, you are out thousands of dollars in repairs and you're now out of warranty and have a car worth nothing.  Offload that puppy while you still can get a good value for it.  If you're in a major city, I think you'll do well.  I'd sell it private sale to get the best value.

I'm really impressed with all you are doing to become a surgeon while also having a big family!  Wow!  I won't tell you to cut Netflix.  I also won't tell you to cut smartphones, but I will say that if you have the desire you can probably save some money by shopping around.  At work (I work at a nonprofit) we have cellphones through Republic Wireless.  They are new Google/Android smartphones and they cost only $200 each.  The monthly plan is $10 a  month if you are okay with only using wireless for data, $30 a month for a full data plan.  In my case I couldn't talk H out of an actual iPhone, but we still saved over $80 a month last year switching from Verizon to T-Mobile (though Verizon has better plans now).  

ETA: Definitely do the math out on dental insurance.  I have a pertinent example.  We got the bad news yesterday that H will need about $5,000 worth of dental work over the next year and a half.  Our choices are a real dental plan or partial reimbursement through his union, and even with 16 fillings on the docket it still doesn't make sense for us to go with the real dental plan.  They are expensive, and most still have high charges attached to most procedures.  My yearly checkups/cleanings are $130 OOP.  

Erikan73

If you can afford it, I would keep it because this way if your other vehicle needs to go into the shop for some reason, you have a back up car. If you don't want to have the expense of insuring it, talk to a local mechanic for advise on if you need to do anything special for basically putting it into storage mode. They may recommend removing the battery or something. I don't know, a mechanic would be better to advise you on what to do. Then turn in the plates on the vehicle, by doing that you won't be required to maintain insurance on it. The other option is talk to your local DMV to find out what your state laws are regarding keeping the plates and putting comprehensive only (fire & theft) on it. With the age of the car, that coverage should be fairly cheap. With this option, if you were to need the vehicle, you can put Liability coverage on it with a quick 5 minute call to your insurance provider.

formerlyGDaisy09

OK! I've gotcha now! I do clinical research in health policy and clinical practive (and have a public health degee...that's where my comment about contraception stemmed from, we have a baby due in december and I literally just had this conversation with H and our midwife). I have many friends in the throws of medical residency...all with well over $250K in SLs (though only a handful have kids to worry about). Picking up extra work is going to be impossible...and your H is probably going to end up carrying a lot of the home/childcare responsibilities once you're off your research time. Most my friends are basically approaching their SL debt as a seperate mortgage, they've made peace with the fact that, for at least the forseeable future, they'll be making minimum payments on those loans to get by. 

this is really tough, I can see keeping the prius but removing colision insurance from it (we recently aquired a 2003 chrystler and did not put colision on it, if we end-up in a crash repairs would be more than the car is worth, we'd end-up writing it off as a total loss or selling it to a salvage yard). I can also see selling the prius and letting that money sit in an account for a future down payment on something. I guess my worry would be, what if the prius doesn't last 1.5 years? that wouldn't be out of the relm of reasonable possibilities for a 10+ year old vehicle, if you sell it now you can probably get KBB for good/very good condition, versus if it starts having problems then you decide to sell you might only get KBB for fair condition...and the car would be that much older. 

julieanne912

For cooking... I love the blog www.budgetbytes.com.  All the recipes are designed to keep costs down, reuse leftovers, etc.  And she gives a cost breakdown for each recipe.  Obviously the costs will vary depending on area, but it gives you an idea at least.  

short+sassy

monkeysaurus said:

- no child support/other support/any material responsibility for the non-custodial parent. 

- we just barely don't qualify for any support programs that I can find (eg Headstart, WIC, etc), which is a little frustrating, because if I weren't working so many extra shifts or my husband wasn't working part time, we would. 

- the current hospital provides $9/day for in house overnight call, nothing for food on other days. No resident lounge here. When I go back to real residency I will get $10 per night for in house overnight call, nothing on other days, but will definitely be eating more plenty of the resident lounge. Sadly it's not well stocked compared with a lot of other programs I have heard of (basically apples, yogurt, coffee, and sometimes PBJs). I'll try contacting my GME to see if they have any hook ups for the eventual loan issue- thanks for the suggestion!  

- definitely down with minimizing the housing budget. Currently we're in a two bedroom apartment, and unless the layout allows for some good room dividers I don't think we want to go much smaller than that with two boys, two girls, and the need to sometimes sleep at odd hours post call. 

I'll think about posting the full budget... I know y'all will try and convince me that we don't need the smartphones (we use them constantly for everything!), don't need the YMCA (gives free child care for 1.5 hours a day, giving my exercise nut husband a well deserved break, and gives us a place to teach the kids to swim which I think is a really great life skill!), don't need netflix (but we don't even own a TV!), and could do better with groceries/meal planning/coupons (very true- it's a learning curve). And I know you would be right about all of these things. I wonder if you would say to drop the dental insurance... on the fence about that one.  

First bolded:  That might change once you move to your HCOL area, so I would revisit this once you move.  But I can relate a bit.  I was unemployed for over a year back in 2012.  I was entitled to the max. amount for unemployment which was JUST above what would have qualified me for food stamps.  Hmmm...interesting coincidence (sarcasm).  So, basically, an extra $50/month blocked me from being eligible for $200/month in WIC.

Second bolded:  Yeah, I can't see going smaller than a 2-bedroom.  That is impressive enough!