Splat, hard mode, hard dollars

Like I mentioned yesterday, Ali opted to stay an extra night in Orlando after her half marathon on Sunday.  The discussion was it was hard to drive back three hours after a race so it would be more relaxing for her to stay the night, sleep in and then drive home leisurely.  Sounds good I guess.

So I get home yesterday and expect to walk in to Ali feeling somewhat refreshed and happy to be home. Instead she looked frazzled and stressed as she was in the middle of mountain of pots and pans. She decided to make a vegetarian shepherd’s pie last night, a recipe she found somewhere.

She was so buried in cooking her being away for three days seemed to be totally forgotten.  It was basically “Hi” and that’s it.  Although I appreciated her effort to prepare a nice homemade meal, walking into that chaos was not exactly great, especially in a “welcome home” situation.

Last night I wanted to try one more 180 hard mode attempt.  Hard mode involves switching your hands at the top of the pull up movement instead of the bottom.  I tried it once before to just see if I could do it and got 4 reps.  I managed 8 reps last night but it looked ugly.  On a few reps I almost fell off the bar as my grip slipped.  I wasn’t real happy with the attempt.

The other day I ran some preliminary numbers on a potential convertible Camaro purchase.  They weren’t exactly pretty.

My original goal when I first dreamed about a new Camaro purchase in 2009 was to be able to slide into one after paying off the Camry Hybrid.  Part of that slide included keeping the payment amount in the same ball park.

Well since that goal was established there has been a small price increase and my sights shifted upward when the convertible option was announced.  A drop top Camaro in SW Florida, how perfect, right?

Well anyway when I ran numbers, the potential monthly payments were not as close to the hybrid payments as I would want.  There are several variables that could influence where that number falls like what discount plan I can manage to secure as well as interest rate and loan term.  But even with those variables, the bottom line is to get the payment more where I want it to be it will require a large down payment.  Accumulating the additional funds to comfortably drop that lump sum could require additional saving, and waiting.

Of course the thought goes through my head questioning is it really worth it?  After all it’s just a car, albeit a car I would want to keep as long as I am breathing.  That reality is what has kept me from doing an impulse buy a long time ago and is what driving me to make sure I can do it without having a major negative impact on our current financial situation.