At some point during our latest car saga I caught Mr H and told him that we needed to discuss car replacement. He told me that he didn't have time/was too tired/some reason he couldn't do it right then. I said, "Okay, when?" "June 1st" was the reply. He surprised me by remembering this appointment and appearing willing to have the discussion. Frequently he "forgets" this kind of thing.

What came out of this discussion was that we should save about $10,000 for a replacement vehicle.

But as I thought about it, I was uneasy. There is no deadline, and no source for the money for this savings. This means in another year we will have the same conversation because no action will have occurred during that time period. I went back to him and requested a further discussion. It was down hill from there.

Basically, my experience has been problem occurs --> I bring problem to Mr H's attention --> I suggest we work to solve the problem --> Mr H verbally attacks me/reacts by "solving" the problem with the first solution that comes to his head (even/especially if it's one we both hate and it doesn't solve the problem!) --> I later solve the problem by myself or the problem remains unsolved (and uncomfortable for me) --> Mr H experiences that everything "just works out". Dysfunctional? You bet. At the beginning of our marriage I gave him the benefit of the doubt, believed that he would eventually come to see how unproductive this was. Now I realize that I was just way too nice and forgiving . . . but trying to change this pattern requires the full emotional amour because no woman wants to be verbally attacked by her husband. . . and yet I've been down this path enough to know that's pretty much what's going to happen. Much earlier in our marriage I asked Mr H what I could say or do differently to help this situation, or if there was another approach to take. He had no response.

In this instance, the problem is that there is no obvious source of money for these savings. Our budget's stretched pretty thin. Pointing this out to Mr H, and that, if it's not funded it's not a priority, and that bothers me . . . brought the predictable response. Mr H's solution was to sell my car and have us become a one car family, and since Daisy will be homeschooled next year she and I could just stay home all the time. He needs his car for work so of course he'll get to have it every day. It was way less pleasant than I'm reporting it here. Ouch.

At the heart of it though is what seems to be an irresolvable difference in priorities, and an unwillingness to change with circumstances.

Our income is unlikely to go up in the near future. Mr H will not work harder/smarter/more than he is now, and I'm unwilling to sacrifice my home life at this time for another corporate job. (I had two working parents and neither of them were really around to raise us. When Daisy is 18 I plan to work full time and more to make up for what was not saved during this time.) I'm very concerned about retirement savings, planning ahead for seen and unseen expenditures, and having a home life. Mr H appears to be concerned about keeping the house (and only this house) and not having to make any changes to anything about his life. I would be happy to sell the house and go to one car if we lived somewhere where walking and public transportation were more workable. Mr H wouldn't hear of selling this house. We're at something of an impasse.

In the end, I relentlessly forced us to stay focused on the problem. Mr H backed down a bit and apologized. It's progress for us, although sometimes I feel like having to work this hard (and unpleasantly) with him on *every* problem that occurs in our lives is going to kill me.

We agreed to discuss income generating ideas and saving ideas in a couple of weeks.

That's what my mom said to me when I told her about fixing my car with Google.

Thanks Ma, for your vote of confidence in me.

My car saga continues. My car guys fixed my original problem (car dying during acceleration on to the freeway), but another problem turned up after that problem got fixed. When I drove on the freeway for 30 to 40 minutes, my car would stall when I stopped at the end of the off ramp. Sometimes I could keep it from stalling but the idle bounced around between 200-800 rpm. After it stalled I could restart it with no problem. Something about doing that reset the idle, and I could continue on my drive without the problem.

When the problem first turned up, the car guys thought that the replacement part was bad. I took my car back in, they replaced the part (free of charge), same problem. Took it in again, they replaced the second replacement part (free of charge - different manufacturer), same problem. Told them I thought they ought to look at other things that might be causing it. They replaced a different part (charged for service). Same problem.

I then Googled my car's problem - "make model year car stalls when warm" or something like that. Found a bulletin board with seven pages of postings - car owners of my car's make and model discussing this exact problem. I read through all 122 entries. I can't say I know much about the inner workings of my car, but I could pick out the two most frequent causes of the problem.

I printed a few of the postings and took them into my car guys. They looked at them, but kind of dismissed them. They found a part that was kind of dirty (my interpretation of what they said), cleaned it up (no charge) and sent me on my way. Same problem. (I'll add here that they couldn't always reproduce the problem in the shop. Tough to troubleshoot when you can't do that.)

I called them up again. They had become more and more apologetic as time marched on and my car wasn’t fixed. I asked for their email address and told them I was going to send the link to this discussion. By this time my car and its problems had been passed up the chain to the "second in command" of the car repair shop. He read all 122 entries and used the information to look at the car. He found a part that might be causing the problem, replaced it and sent me on my way. (charged for this service) Interestingly, the part he replaced was one of the two most frequent causes of the problem, per this bulletin board entry.

I haven't completely tested the car - just too busy with other things over the weekend. But I should have a good indication tomorrow if the most recent fix is the last fix for this problem.

And my mom? Well, I'm used to her. I said, "Mom, I am not crazy. I am smart and resourceful, and using the resources I have available to me to solve my problems."

I spent about an hour and a half last Friday morning dealing with my 401k. When I left my former employer several years ago I just left my 401k sitting there. About three years ago I decided that I really should roll my 401k over to an IRA and ordered the paper work to do so. I couldn't figure out how to allocate my investments, and I got busy and didn't follow through.

Now my procrastination is catching up with me. My former company was sold to another company, and the 401ks are getting moved to a different 401k plan administrator at the end of May. I have just a few short weeks to act, or face another layer of complication.

It turned out to be a relatively simple process to set up an IRA with an investment company (Mr H and I already have a mutual fund with them). I can put the assets of the 401k into a money market account while I figure out how to allocate them. (Note to self: don't procrastinate on asset allocation.) But there was a little wrinkle in my smooth rollover process. Before my 401k was a 401k it was some other type of savings plan which took post-tax dollars. So I had both post-tax dollars and pre-tax dollars in my account. If I put the post-tax dollars into my IRA I would have to fill out some tax form every year forever (or, I suppose, until those dollars were no longer in my account). I like simple. I do not want to do additional tax forms. I opted to have them send me those dollars as a check. (Note to self: Don't sit on the check.) Because they are post tax dollars there are no tax consequences for me.

While I was on the phone with the 401k person, after I told them to send me a check, they suggested all kinds of things I could do with the money including buying a new car. I ignored the suggestions, but that afternoon as I was accelerating down a long on ramp to get on the freeway I noticed that my car was decelerating. I had just enough time to pull over onto the shoulder of the on-ramp before all the lights came on on my dash and my car died completely.

As I sat in my car on the side of the road for over an hour waiting for the tow truck, I felt tempted by newer cars. But at this point I'm not going to give in. My current plan is to see if I can get my car to last until Daisy's high school graduation, then get a Vespa or something similar. My car is 16 years old, and Daisy has another 9 years before graduation. We'll see how this plays out.

We've been talking about vehicles here in the onion patch.

DH owns a 1992 full-sized truck. I have a 1993 station wagon. Both of our vehicles have had a few problems over the years but have been dependable. They also have 160000+ miles on them.

DH commutes about 15 miles, one way, to work. In a truck that gets 15 miles per gallon that's about two gallons of gas per day, not counting any driving around he does for work. He has really noticed the increase in gas prices.

On and off over the years I've brought up the topic of our aging vehicles and changing needs. When DH bought his truck he was a single guy doing construction. Now he has a family and a job that's more of a desk job. Meanwhile as Daisy has grown I've noticed that I do more "kid hauling" - I don't just take Daisy somewhere but a friend or two as well. Even well-maintained vehicles don't last forever, and my fear is that one day a transmission or engine will go out and we'll be scrambling to replace a vehicle. I'd rather anticipate that need if possible.

My previous attempts to engage DH in discussing our automotive future failed. Now with gas prices high DH has gotten more interested in replacing his vehicle. He has talked about it over the last several months, but again our conversations went no where in terms of action.

DH's parents are selling their car and DH decided that it would be a good choice. It is a 2004 Honda which they bought new. DH and I have had several discussions about it over the last few weeks. He has looked in to insurance for it and talked with a couple of mechanics (one a relative) about this model of car. I think the car is a reasonable choice, so I will agree to it. He has put a lot more effort into acquiring this car than I have seen him put into other things. At other times when we've talked about car replacement he just figured that he'd get a car loan, go to the nearest dealership and buy the first thing that he saw. (Well, maybe not the first thing but close - after 15 years I have a good idea how DH operates.)

The sticking point has been the money required to buy it. DH wanted to get a car loan but I wouldn't agree to that. Last week DH presented me with a list of sources and amounts for the money required for this car. I was impressed. He also says that once the money is straightened out for this car we will start saving for a replacement for my vehicle. I plan to hold him to that.