unhappy wife (thats a waste of money) bet you've heard that before

[Lord Warlock]

Today, I told the wife that we needed to make arrangements to drive down to tampa to drop my car off at a shop for 3 days while they install a KB supercharger in my 2010 challenger.  She had already mentioned that we'll be driving home to Pensacola (380 mile drive) for both Thanksgiving AND Christmas.  Primarily because one daughter goes to school there still and wife wants to spend time with her despite fact that daughter had basically refused to come home for Christmas this year.  Then she told my other daughter that she'd be driving down to visit her in Tampa the week after Xmas. 

I don't mind visiting my kids, but both really don't want their parents around, and don't want to deal with family much during the holidays.  They are just getting out on their own and want to build their own lives.  I can understand that.  And am willing to live apart from them.  Life is much simpler without teenage girls in the house. 

Anyway,  I figured if we were going to drive down to tampa anyway, it would be a good time to take both cars down, and drop my car off and spend some time down there visiting or sight seeing, wife said it would be simpler to just drive down, drop car off and drive back, then go down a week later and pick it up.  I'll have to clear that with Mr Norm's shop first but could be doable.  I plan on having Mr Norm's do the supercharger install and tune.  My car already has many of the mods that a GSS has on it, I may add a few more once it is added to the registry of Mr Norm's tuned cars.  Already have Mr norm's club decals on the glass, and a rear spoiler emblem denoting a mr norms car.  Now I want to finish the transformation.

When explained to wife how much the modification cost, got the instant "what a stupid waste of money" response.  She knows I am into cars, but also have lived with the 5.7 for 5 years now and pretty much don't need the blower.  I'm just getting it because I wanted one on the car when I first got it, but forced myself to wait until the car was paid off and the warranty was expired, and was supposed to have 30k miles on it (well broken in by then) I just crossed that mark recently.  In some ways it is a waste of money, but in others it makes sense to me.  I still get comments every time it is driven, don't see a reason to get rid of it just to get a hellcat.  Yes, I could buy a hellcat for cash if I wanted to, but it would tap out a huge chunk of my savings, roughly 3 years of funding otherwise.  Think I can live without a hellcat, instead I'll make mine a wildcat and make a new emblem for it.  Little did I know that the warranty on my life would only be a few years more than the warranty on the car...If only i'd known then...I'd be in deeper debt now. 

Also for those that haven't read my other threads,  I've got stage 4 prostate cancer, and want to enjoy my daily driver car that I'm really happy with otherwise, for the remaining time I have left (3-5yrs average with treatment), I've been through hormone therapy, been through 10 weeks of radiation, both failed to stop it, and its moved to my liver, bones and lymph nodes, meaning basically that I'll never get rid of it, but we may be able to slow it down with Chemotherapy.  Been through 4 chemo treatments so far, once every 3 weeks. And I get to look forward to this life for the remaining time unless by some miracle they find a chemo treatment that works.  Maybe MD Anderson in conjunction with my provider can figure out what to do, so far it hasn't turned out well.   My only main concern is that for a week I would be carless, as the wife works, and she basically made me get rid of our extra car...I may be selling it tomorrow, I may not.  Depends on the buyers, had two call this week, and both know i'm asking well below NADA.  I am hoping to get around this detail by getting my charger started and drivable before the end of the year, which means I will at least have transport if I have the balls to take it out and drive it again.  Won't take it far that is for sure.  For the first time in my life, money concerns really don't worry me anymore.  The end of next month one of my retirement accounts is lump summing me out, still have to pay taxes on it, but should end up with 20k in cash, half to pay old debts with, half to buy a blower for my car.  This way I get something out of the 10 years I put in with that firm.  It was a good company but I left when I changed careers into the IT world.  Never looked back.  Anyway, the 20k will serve us in two ways, paying off all of our remaining debt except the student loans (which aren't really ours) and splurging a bit on myself.   I get disability SS, so not broke.  Already gave wife 70k this year to pay off other debts (dental, medical, and old debt), and starting to wonder why bother, if its in my name, she aint responsible as we don't have joint credit accounts.

House and other financials have been dealt with should something happen to me otherwise.  100k in Life insurance should make selling the house easier if she pays the mortgage with the insurance payout.  (told her to let it go and just buy another house before she does, but she won't do that, and to be truthful if I was alive I wouldn't either) I always pay my debts. Also have another 100k to blow in the next 5 years, I figure 15k to 20k taken out each year should outlast me, probably wouldn't have done much if I lived to be my dad's age (86) but should last me now.  Any way you slice it, this year may be the only time we have 10k laying around for me to blow on myself.  I've already planned on taking 20k out early next year to buy the wife a newer car, she knows it, but seems to think spending 10k to go faster isn't smart.  She doesn't understand i'm not going for smart...I'm shooting for fun instead, adding a blower won't make the car worth 10k more, may even drop the value some.  Maybe being a Mr Norm's car will help the value some. I don't think the decision stupid, and I'd rather spend some of my money on me, instead of spending it on the wife and kids, wife has 4x the savings I do, kids are grown and we shouldn't be supporting them anymore. But girls being girls, they don't always make the best decisions, and we parents usually have to bail them out....over and over again.

Now that the decision has been made, I had to break the ice with the wife, and tell her what I planned to do, her attitude won't change my mind, she'll get over it quick enough, especially when she starts driving a CX5 next year.  I've got a tried and true formula, broach the topic once or twice a year, then one year up and tell her I'm going through with it after all, she can't say she wasn't warned, and now after paying our debts down to an imaginary zero mark (it will rise again, the longer we live) she can't say no, especially when the money is my own retirement account.  Also have another account I have to cash out as well, around 8k.  When I got on disability I found out exactly what companies have retirement funds and how much they were.  Didn't think I had that much accrued other than my 401k and Roth Accounts.

[skip68]

   
Sounds like an awesome plan LW.  Get that supercharger.   

[Kern Dog]

You sure write a lot. Do you ever get time to work on your cars?   

[Lord Warlock]

Since the cancer diagnosis, I have had a lot of time on my hands the last two years, and almost no energy to work on anything, much less my cars...but I force myself to go out to the garage every day, and do something to get the charger back on the road this year, be it rerouting gas lines, rewiring the engine bay or just buying new stuff and installing it.  My hormone therapy I've been on for 18 months eliminates all testosterone production in my body, amazing how drained you feel with no male hormones being supplied.

Since I have been busier than normal confronting areas of the charger rebuild that I have put off to the last parts, primarily because i'm not an expert or even well read on those particular areas, I tend to ask others on the forum to assist, since that is why I aspire to do on things I do know about.  Electricals and plumbing are my weak spots, and I'm now working on electricals in the engine bay, as well as vacuum systems, and under dash wiring and car stereo installation.  

I also write a lot because that was what I did in real life before being forced into retirement early. My job was to break down processes, and rewrite documentation for end users to utilize in order to complete a process or series of steps.  I had to take tech docs and make them understandable by trained monkeys.  

At least the challenger supercharger will still be a set it and forget it type of mod, I will let the pros tune it and put it in, I don't feel like spending 7k only to screw it up myself, keep in mind I've swapped motors in my charger twice all by myself and the car still ran till I took the engine apart (the top end at least) to detail it last year.  I'm not afraid to tune, but I also have to consider cost of the parts, I am fine with installing a 500.00 or 1000.00 part, not real comfy with an 8k part.

[Kern Dog]

I appreciate your writing skills. Too bad the people on every cragslist ad do not have to go through you first!

[1974dodgecharger]

Get SC u only live once and u xeserve it....

[Aero426]

Do it. Enjoy yourself without regret.  Sounds like you have planned well.

[Lord Warlock]

Didn't plan well for a full life of 85 to 90 years like my dad and his dad before him, but I planned it out and did better than my younger brother, who died of leukemia 6 years ago.  I'll get a few years to drain my bank accounts first before I go.  Heck, I still hold hope that one of the treatments work and I get a few extra years in remission, but I don't believe in living real life with fantasy life expectancies.

Talked to Mr Norm's shop, they'll want me to purchase the blower two weeks in advance of the install, then make arrangements for dropoff of the car.  So right now I'm waiting until mid December to order the blower, and hope to plan the install in early January.  May look like a chrome toaster on the engine, but it'll still be pretty and faster than before.  Gives me time to talk to NateDawg and get some new emblems made. 

[1974dodgecharger]

AWESOME!!!! 

[birdsandbees]

A man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do.

That said, don't miss the concern behind her thoughts. Chasing our daughter though hospitals for 6 years certainly changed my perspective on life and it brought me back to my cars.

I wish you well, which ever path your take. But nothing beats being BLOWN!    

[Lord Warlock]

Having a practical wife has been very good for the family overall, but she has always been a tightwad, spending anything over 1500 bucks usually means repeated conversations, but then again we had kids with tons of bills, now kids are grown and we're trying to wean them off of our wallets, spending 10k on a car modification seems excessive, but I'm also committing to not buying another car anytime soon (if ever) by doing the mod.  I don't feel guilty at all, because I'm basically spending more than I am on me, on her for a new car this year also.  Her new car may soften her feeling against me spending $$ on myself. 

Being a tightwad isn't a bad thing, when young you have to prioritize expenditures on Need, now the over 50 mindset is setting in that I can focus on a want, if I choose to.  I may rarely use the extra power, but I'll always know its there.  And with a supercharger on this car, getting rid of the stealth turbo won't be as painful later when i'm ready to give it away. 

[birdsandbees]

I hear yah fella! My wife's always been the saver and thankfully that got us where we are in life. That said she's never got in the way of me spending it and the on going joke around here is "don't be gone too long, you never know what new thing you might come home to in the yard". Generally a new airplane has been purchased if she's away for more than 24 hours!

[Lord Warlock]

Over the years I've heard the phrase way more often than I wanted to, but there had to be a voice of reason to stop me from myself (every now and then).  Sometimes I likely caved in, but have also gone ahead a few times in the past.  She wasn't real excited about our new driveway I just had done last week, surrounded half the house with a new cement moat, and had an overlay done on the old driveway to make it look presentable after 25 years.  But today she was real happy with the way it turned out and was glad we did it. 

Suppose I may have to go ahead and get a landscaper to come fix our yard, I can't weed anymore and she hates it, seems we can't get grass to grow where we want, but it grows in the flower beds great.  I may wait until Late February or March and just do it for next spring instead, should last longer that way. 

[six-tee-nine]

I think 90% of the guys around here have a wife that thinks that putting money in cars (old or new) is a waste of money.

But mine thinks its better to spend it on cars than on beer and cigarettes...