Details

The details are...basically, the subprime mortgage mess screwed me out of a car.

My credit scores are better than they were in January (except for one bureau, because my student loan company stopped reporting to them for some mysterious reason). I have more money to put down. I have been living in the same place longer, and I have been working in the same place longer. I am the most financially, emotionally, and otherwisely stable I have been in my adult life. I haven't had a late payment on anything in over three years.

But I can't get a car unless I can give them $3800 down. On a $15000 car. Even if I purchased gap insurance, there is nothing they can do for me. I don't have $3800.

I'm just so frustrated. Because people were irresponsible enough to take out mortgages when they didn't have enough to pay them, and because mortgage companies were handing them out like they were...water, without verifying income and without a care about what would happen when interest rates adjusted, the rest of us, who don't have credit scores in the 750-800 range but who are responsible people who don't seek out a car loan until they have the money to actually pay a note are screwed.

I have no idea what I'm going to do. I can use the money I was going to use on a down payment on repairs instead, but am I just throwing good money after bad in a car whose power steering pump is failing? I think that is the most expensive repair outstanding, though an A/C compressor might give it a run for its money.

This is why I wish either that BR had better public transportation (if I took the bus, my 10 minute commute would turn into about 2 hours with about 2 miles of walking - part of it on a highway), or that I had insurance when I racked up the medical bills that are screwing me up right now (though for one, I did have insurance - the urgent care center billed the wrong insurance account, despite me providing them with the correct one multiple times). I wish capitalism didn't suck as much as it does suck sometimes. It's still better than the alternatives, I guess, but still...

Sigh.