Thanks to my husband's brother, we are officially a two car household again.When the water pump on my Stratus went out in June 2009 and the gear box on my husband's T-100 was having issues, we just didn't have the cash to get them fixed. It's been almost two years since we traded in both our vehicles for our Focus. It's also been 2 years of negotiating rides and schedules to get from point A to point B and back again. It was an extremely hard adjustment for us to equally lose our vehicle independence. Between his ever changing schedule and my regular babysitting jobs on the weekends, we bickered often about driving arrangements. Long story short: he was not a fan of me dropping him off and picking him up from work and occasionally having to ride his bike to work. He always wanted the freedom of having the car with him while I felt driven to support our family as much as I could. Those conversations ended in frustration more often than not.
Lucky for me (please note the sarcasm in this sentence) Portland is the mecca of public transportation. I rode public transportation every day for a year and a half to get to work, spending upwards of 2-2 1/2 hours a day walking, waiting, and riding. Meanwhile, my husband happily drove himself to work, to play, and if I was lucky, to pick me up from work on his days off. I finally got fed up wasting so much of my free time riding a bus, spending nearly 12 hours a day away from home, and found a lucky opportunity to transfer to a center that was within walking distance of our current home.
When we found out we had to move right before the New Year, we knew our search radius would be limited. We had considered buying a cheap car from a friend, knowing that we would need to drop at least $500 on top of the initial purchase price to get it running after it sat in his driveway for nearly 4 years. I was apprehensive we would have enough funds to both move and get the car in working order. Fast forward two months, and my husband casually mentions the prospect to his brother, who happened to have an unwanted car sitting in his driveway. They negotiated a down payment of $500 with 5 additional payments of $100 on the assumption his wife would agree to the sale. That night my husband received a text from him saying "you can have the car." My husband interpreted his message that his wife had agreed to the terms. Eventually my brother-in-law calls him and luck would have it, explains that instead of giving us our original wedding gift of $1000 towards the down payment of our first house, which we are nowhere near ready to purchase, he would just give us the car, free of charge. I have to say my jaw dropped, my brother-in-law is by far my least favorite person, who has caused a lot of emotional and financial pain in the past.
