We are not car people. If I have a choice of spending $30,000 on a car or on five cool vacations, I’m going to pick the vacations every time. That’s why our cars suck.

We have a 2008 Subaru Outback with 135K miles that we bought used about ten years ago. The was the first and only car that we ever purchased. Our other car that Steve drives a mile to the train station every morning is a 20-year old Toyota Camry with $155K miles. It’s a hand-me-down from my parents. There are rust holes in the trunk and deep gouges in the hood of the car from when the basketball hoop feel on the car about ten years ago.

Both cars have been towed to the car mechanic in the past two months. The Camry was towed away yesterday, after the brakes started failing when he and Ian were on the highway.  Jen the neighbor carried her one-year old son outside to watch the car getting hoisted up by the tow truck.

Jimmy the Mechanic said that it will cost $500 to fix the breaks. Is it worth putting more money into that hunk of junk? After some thought, we decided to pay the $500 bucks to repair the car with a plan to replace it within the next six months. We bought ourselves some time to think about what to do.

Should we buy or lease?