Culling the fleet

Had a chap in with a flat-deck tow truck today. He left with the Escape on the deck and the Torment on the stinger. He'll come back for the Subaru on Monday.

That a lot of hopes and dreams gone. That Escape, for example. I'd hoped I could use the almost new tires on my truck. Bought the entire vehicle for about half what a new set of tires would cost. Unfortunately, the Escape tires aren't rated for the F150.

So it served a couple of years as a all-round fun field car, which was in itself worth at least the $400. Today I got $300 for it.

As for the Pontiac Torment, that was my dream to prove nursing along a used car was financially smart. The Subaru was another. They both failed miserably. Between initial costs and cumulative repairs, they gave me six years for about $30k. If I'd just bought a Toyota Corolla before that madness set in, I'd have saved ten grand, and the car would give me another six years, at least.

But, live and learn, I always say. The problem is it takes so long to learn stuff that you pretty much need a second life to put all that knowledge to use.