We have 2 cars:
1994 Taurus w/ 170K miles (We refer to it as the Golden Chariot)
1998 Camry w/ 100K miles (We refer to it as the New Car!)

Since I won't be working immediately after we relocate, hubby & I had talked about selling or donating the "Golden Chariot" just before we leave (Sept. 30th is the planned date), taking just the "New Car" with us, and seeing if we could manage with just one car without driving each other crazy.

Well, isn't it funny how life happens when you are busy making other plans? Sure enough, the Taurus went kaput. Won't start; nothing happens when we turn the key. Accessories do light up, so we think it's a starter problem rather than the battery.

Tomorrow we'll be calling our repair guy to see if he can give us a rough estimate without seeing it. Then, we will have a big decision on our hands: Do we cough up the money for the repair, or do we go ahead and donate the car now and live with just one car for our last 7-1/2 months here? [I need the car 3-8 hours a day 7 days a week for my business, and my husband works from home, so getting by with one car could be done but would take a bit of coordinating and patience. In our city, bus service is spotty and the nearest stop is about 5 miles away.]

I'm expecting the repair estimate to be somewhere in the $300-600 range. The Blue Book on our car is hard to pin down since the condition is somewhere between Fair & Poor (ImaSaver - don't fall off your chair when you read this!) but I think the most we could get would be $800, and that would be if we were really, really lucky. $500 would be more realistic.

So, depending on the $$$ amount the repair guy tells us, tomorrow may be a day when we make a more-than-slightly life-altering decision.