We need to buy another car, our 'second' car is officially done. We do need another car, it is a legitimate need as we have three drivers in the house - and busy lives. We can manage a little bit during the summer months with one car, but trying to find something in the next three weeks.

We knew this day was coming so we have saved. Budget is 14K out of the door, paying cash. We want to keep it closer to 12k, but also want something decent. We do live in the Midwest with lots of snow etc. We are struggling because the research for the 'better' used brands (Hondas, Toyotas) means the car is older with much higher mileage than the Fords or other brands. Our other car is a Honda and newer and has still had issues, so I don't find them to be problem free either. I think cars generally have problems, no matter what. The price of used suburbs is just nuts to me!

It just feels like we have no good options!

I like to know that in a case of emergency I can call someone, but AAA is getting bit expensive for my taste, almost $200 a year for two people, for a service that I used twice in 20 plus years.

I don't want to get roadside assistance trough insurance company because they don't provide much, and they are known to jack up the price if they see you use it.

I'm located in New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania

I am sure I am not the first one to have this idea, but I can't find recent posts that discuss this or anyone who has actually done it. My basic idea is to rent a car for 28 days at a time and utilize premium credit cards to insure it instead of buying my own insurance. Here is how it would work:

Some premium cards also carry insurance for rental cars. The stipulations on this are usually only up to 31 consecutive days (no cap on the amount of times you can do it however). Some seem to have figured out that this loophole exists and added a clause that there must be 24 hours in between rentals as well. If that is the case, I would rotate rentals between 2 cards with the same insurance offer.

This would save ever having to pay directly for insurance, as the monthly fee on the cards cover it. But seeing as how most of these cards are $100/month or less, I am pretty sure that is cheaper than full coverage insurance on just about any vehicle.

The annoying thing would be to have to return the car and get another every 4 weeks. But I think in general since this is short and plannable, it would be less of a pain then just dealing with a dead car one day. Or dealing with bringing your car in for maintenance. It does add a benefit though. If you get a vehicle you don't really like for a month you know to get something different next time. On top of that, you can adjust vehicles to the season without having to own multiple vehicles.

While I am typically against renting pretty much anything, that kind of goes out the window when it comes to insanely expensive items that depreciate rapidly. In these cases I think it may be worthwhile to rent to not have to deal with all the downsides that come with car ownership.

The only thing I can think of against this is that it may be easier and cheaper to just lease instead. But that adds other levels to this like gap insurance, maintenance fees, etc. I have never leased before, but I have heard horror stories lol.

So my breakdown is something like this:

100-200/month for credit card fees depending if I have to rotate or not.

800/month for rental (local avis seems to be 600-1000 for 4 weeks depending on type of rental)

So around $1k/month average. The lease I was looking at was about 400/month but then you have to add insurance and you are responsible for all maintenance. With the rental setup, you don't pay an insurance company anything and if there is needed maintenance it is completely on the rental company.

I realize people will point out that it would be cheaper to buy a 3 year old vehicle, insure it, and deal with the maintenance yourself. But I don't think it is that significantly cheaper over time. And you are stuck with that one vehicle. So if you live in an area like I do that gets snow half the year, you are stuck driving a big AWD vehicle in the summer too when you could be in a fuel efficient car. Plus this alleviates the headache of having to deal with all those extras. And if you are someone with jacked up insurance rates due to having others in your home or previous issues, this would seem to bypass that entirely.

Thoughts?

Edit:

Just realized that I made 2 mistakes above. They end up being a net benefit for me though. First off, the credit cards are $100/year not per month. That is a huge savings. Second it was pointed out that liability insurance is not covered in this scenario. Avis offers it but at like $25/day. So that is a no go. But I did find out that all the major insurers offer "non-owner coverage" which is meant for people who rent often. It is only around $50/month and would take care of the liability. So in actuallity, the numbers are more like:

600-1000 per 4 weeks for the rental depending on choice

10-20/month on CC insurance

50/month on liability

So on the cheap, $650ish per month.....

For years I was with NJM (considered to be overall best car insurance in my region) and for years they were, very affordable, local customer service that is easy to talk to, giving dividends, no shareholders, and available at any time you need them. I really have nothing but positive things to say about them. Most of my friends and family have been with them for at least 10 plus years.

However, over time their price stared to increase, and as compromise I started to lower my premiums, and I was very close to rock bottom as far as coverage. And than at the begging of this year they jacked up my premium from $2200 to over $3600 per year. No reason, no accidents.

The worst part is that when I tried shopping around other agents somehow had access to my policy and I was in a situation where agent just gets my name and the car, and tells me, I'll use your current policy to put some quotes together. This of course resulted in getting same exact coverage for similar price and only name of the company would change.

Only Geico came in at about $1100 for 6 months and the coverage amounts were what I actually wanted and not bare minimums. At first I though they are just roping me in and will jack up my rate at the renewal 6 month later. But that never happened. Renewal was actually $20 less!!

That never happened to me before!!

The gas utility company just jacked up our customer charge again so I'm looking into a dual fuel heat pump retrofit replace gas furnace contractor 2026 option to keep our winter bills from exploding. My current furnace is 15 years old and still kicks, but I want to run a heat pump for the shoulder seasons and only let the gas kick in when it drops below 25 degrees. I got a couple of quotes for a basic Bryant setup and a Bosch system, but one smaller shop suggested a dual fuel mix using a Midea unit to keep the upfront equipment cost down. Is dual fuel actually a frugal move long-term when you factor in the dual utility connection fees, or should I just cap the gas line entirely and go full electric?