I see this was so many years ago, but I would appreciate a copy of the spreadsheet if it is still in circulation :) acroy25@yahoo.com

Well, I know 2 Accords or Camrys will set you back 53K. A suburban and a camry could be more like 70K. If financed, she is probably upside down, and would lose money selling them. Anyone here ever sold a car on her own? Its one thing to trade in, but quite another meeting strangers for test drives. I guess there is carmax, but I'm quite sure they are in full lowball mode in this economy. You are making several assumptions: 1. Toyota only sell Camrys. They actually sell less expensive models, such as the Corolla. Honda also sell the Civic for far less money. Are they fancy cars? No. 2. New car purchases. The OP can buy used cars. There lots of used cars selling for $10k-15k - heck I saw 2 year old used Saabs going for $15k. 3. Carrying $53K in auto debt is the default and it's not worth lowering debt if you can't erase all of it. Sure, she may be underside down and may still have some debt afterwards but likely it'll be less than $53K. She needs to run the numbers to figure out if it's worth it. Finally, I would take a course at the local community college about basic auto mechanics. Learn how to change a tire, check the oil, change the oil, check tire pressure, etcs. I learned a long time ago that basic auto care is necessary. Ten years ago, I got a flat tire on I-95 so I changed the tire myself - not one person stopped to help me (maybe I looked a bit too competent). We've sold a car to CarMax. I'm sure we didn't get the absolute best price for the car but it was a fair price (I had done some research on the internet to get a ballpark price). It was amazingly easy to sell to CarMax. I would recommend it to people who don't want to do it themselves.

Maybe I will change my mind in the future, but for now I will move forward with the "what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours" attitude. There are NO garantees in life. I never want to be legally bound to anyone ever again...by marriage, real estate or otherwise. My current husband was the same way. He never wanted to marry again. Eventually, when the hurt wears off you too may change your mind. These days, to even last 10 years is against the odds. A lot can happen in 10 years, people change, married or not. Hopefully, you won't lose a lot & hopefully you can recover from this financially. Hi, OP here. My apologies. ItÂs my fault the topic diverted. I honestly did not mean for this topic to go the way it has. Waking up this morning and reading the latest input, taking in everyone's views on marriage / non marriage. There is a lot of great feedback. No one knows what happened with your relationship, hopefully not being married will be to your advantage. I am 3 times married myself, 1st time too young, 2nd too blind, 3rd much older & wiser. I've seen a lot in my 40 years, people change whether you have that piece of paper or not. Trying to work through things depends on what the situation is. Should I have tried to work out marriage 1? No. Marriage 2 - staying wasn't an option - verbal abuse turned to physical abuse. Currently 8 years that I'm with my husband. He's a good guy, more so then my other choices. He has his moments, some how we've worked through some really rough times. It wasn't that piece of paper that made me stay, being disabled & having no income has made me stick it out. After almost divorcing a few times we're doing really well. It isn't at all clear to me how the OP would be in a better position if she and the BF had married. If anything, their finances would be even more entangled. I have to agree. Divorce #2 for me was costly. Doing a google of Connecticut divorce law, it may be to the OP's benefit that she was not married... Division of Marital Property - Connecticut is referred to as an "all property equitable distribution state." In Connecticut, the Court has the power to "assign to either the husband or wife all or any part of the estate of the other." Conn. Gen. Stats. § 46b-81. Any property, therefore, regardless of when or how acquired, can be re-distributed by the Court. Conn doesn't recognize common law, so that's a plus. I'm interested to hear what the attorney says. Here is a link that might be useful: Connecticut Divorce

I didn't want to bore everyone with all the details, but the only way to get this house will be an all cash offer. This is an off-market sale; the seller is a licensed Realtor in my Realtor's office and is in a difficult personal situation that requires her to sell fast and quietly. The seller is already in contract with another buyer. The buyer has missed his date to remove his financing contingency. The seller is going to give the buyer Notice to Perform as soon as we have a signed backup contract. The lender has told the seller that the buyer's loan will come through by the end of this month (3 weeks) but the seller can't wait that long. If we have a financing contingency, even a 15-day one which my mortgage broker says is possible, we won't give the seller enough incentive to sell to us. Instead, she will put her house on the MLS and have an all-cash buyer within 3 or 4 days. That's how hot the market is where I live. She seems to be willing to do this. We'd lose the sale or have to come up with a higher price due to the bidding war that's likely to occur. Just for background on this zipcode, there have been 3 houses on the MLS in our target area of 20 square blocks in the past 2 months. We bid on the first one and lost out to a higher bidder - there were 5 bids. The 2nd one we didn't bid on - it also had 5 bids. The 3rd one we didn't bid on - it had 2 bids. All 3 houses sold at 3-8.5% over asking. Since this house is a lower price than the one we bid on last month, we're confident that the loan won't be a problem. We were pre-approved for the higher loan, and my mortgage broker has been working through the process since then to make sure everything's in place for a fast turnaround on a new loan.