We finally saved up enough money for my wife to have a new car. It took us a while to get there and while saving up she continued to drive her old car, the one she has had since high school. If you follow Dave Ramsey at all you will understand why this was our Dave Ramsey car. It was a car that did not look that great but ran well and was a key piece in allowing us to save money since we did not have car payments.
In reviewing the Blue Book value of her car I realize that we did great by selling the car on Craig’s List. In our situation we made about 2 and 1/2 times what we would have received by trading it in. If you are comfortable with it I definitely recommend you sell your car yourself instead of trading it in.
Some key things I did were:
- be honest about the good and the bad about the car
- Set a little higher price then you expect to receive with expectation that some people will haggle.
- Tell your story so people can have a connection with you
- Show the car on a safe location other than your house. I did it at a Target parking lot.
- Only accept cash (you do not want to deal with payments)
- Watch out for online scams (some goofball is trying to scam me now but I am trying to figure out how to mess with them)
- Clean the heck out of the car inside, out, and under the hood.