$265. What to do with it.....?

[stickgoat]

An accumulation of birthday money has left me with about $265. Needless to say I wish to spend it on my 240.

But....what to buy? I have a few options I'm considering:

- B&M short throw shifter ($250). The horse c*** of a stock shifter is starting to disturb me.

- Apexi N1 Dual exhaust ($540). I really want an exhaust system. Obviously I don't have enough cash for it at the moment, but I'm over halfway there...so saving from my next paycheck or two would prove sufficient. (btw, if you've ordered this system from Enjuku, how much was shipping?)

- Struts. I haven't looked terribly hard into brands and/or prices yet, but I DO have a box of Eibach Pro-Kit springs sitting in the corner, lonely and unused because I don't wish to put them on until I can replace my stock struts at the same time. So going this route would almost provide a 2-in-1 deal seeing as I've had the springs for a couple of months now. This option would also require saving from my next paycheck(s).

- Payments. The boring route... I'm paying $140 a month on my car and could knock off a couple more payments with this. Not quite as exciting...but the faster I pay off the car, the faster I get rid of another bill.

So what route would you go? I'm torn almost equally between these four options. If you have a better suggestion, feel free to throw it out. Input is appreciated.

[stickgoat]

Ok...a couple things to consider -

Enjuku has the B&M STS on sale for $230.

Tokico HP struts are $340.

Dammit, I don't know.

[PalmerWMD]

see if your lender will let u pay that money directly toward your principal.That will either reduce your payments cuz it saves a lot of interest, (and interest on interest) or shorten your loan if u keep payments same.

lets say that is 2 payments for you, applied to the prinicpal and keeping payments same it might shorten your loan by 3 payments at the end.

You's have to check with your lender tho, it may depend on your loan agencies policies as written in your agreement how readily this is done.

Fred...

[stickgoat]

I'm paying a private party. We're not doing it through a bank or anything... I'm just giving him money every month and we each have a sheet keeping track of the payments which we both sign when money is exchanged. Thus I don't have to worry about interest or any of that. Just a flat 140 and that's that.

Part of me wants to go ahead and make a couple of extra payments, but there's so much I want to do the car, I kind of feel obligated to use extra money when I have it.

[sxse]

I'd get the struts... Your car will feel awsome and you'll feel even better that you got such an awsome car! Therefor your payments will be more bearable 'cause you know your car rocks!:D

[milo]

Make the payments!

The faster you pay off the car , the more money you have free to buy anything... car related or otherwise.

But if you must have something, get struts, because you already have springs.

[SweetDreams]

not to dip in your business how much do you owe on the car?

If it is a lot I would say go with the short shifter or save for the shocks.

Or if is less then put it towards the payment.

[lateralmotion]

Listen she said that she doesn't have to pay any interest or anything, so it doesn't really matter how fast she pays it off, so it's either flushing the fun down the boring-drain or buying something and feeling excited about it; i mean come on it's BIRTHDAY money. I just got fifty fun bucks from my grandmother and i had to use it to pay people back. Not fun.

[lateralmotion]

I'd say get the cold air extension for your intake, cause without that, your short ram isn't really worth much; and a plus is you'll still have a good bit of money left over.

[stickgoat]

I owe just under 2000 on the car...so it's not too terribly much, and I can easily afford the payments. I can even double up on them each month if I so choose to.

I really want struts just so I can install those springs and essentially be done upgrading my suspension until I can afford wheels/tires.....but....I've known since I bought the car that it needs a new muffler, and I took a closer look at it today and it's a little worse off than I thought. The outer shell is actually so rusted that it's peeling off. Not only does it look like crap, but I can only imagine what's happening on the inside of the muffler and I'm sure it's nothing beneficial to performance.

So I'm thinking I'll set aside the bulk of the money and hope that my next paycheck will be big enough for me to justify the purchase of an exhaust system, and go ahead and get the Apexi.

Christmas isn't terribly far off and I should be getting some money then as well....if I can't afford struts before hand I'll buy 'em for xmas.

I haven't decided officially yet but I'm thinking exhaust might be my best option considering the very shoddy condition of my stock muffler.

[Bubba1]

I recommend not paying off that loan early. It's 0% interest, so you won't find a better deal than that. My recommendation is to pay off any credit card balances you may have first, which carry significant interest. If that's not an issue, and you're on a budget, I suggest looking at what your car needs. It seems a waste to upgrade your struts if there's nothing wrong with them. You said your muffler is wearing out. That's where you should spend your money. Upgrade it if you can while replacing it. When you get more money, do some more.

[ninjak84]

Put it towards payments.

[Luke]

Pay off the car, nothings worse than finally getting it paid off down the road, and the thing blows up on u :-)

[stickgoat]

I don't have a credit card, so thus I don't have credit card debt. My fiance and I live in a small apartment off of the back of his mom's house. She only occasionally asks for money and it's always under $100.

Thus, I'm essentially bill-free except for my $140 a month payment on the 240, and other usual expenses like food and gas.

I'm pretty much settled on the Apexi exhaust. I very badly need a new muffler and since I wanted to upgrade my exhaust regardless, this seems an appropriate time to do it.

The car is in fantastic shape other than the muffler. I want to do basic tune-up things like new plugs and wires, and I have a few door dings I want removed, but other than that there isn't anything the car really needs to have taken care of.

Thanks for the input though. Keep it comin'...if nothing else it'll give me further ideas for any Christmas money I might get.

[DELUCCA21]

Buy the exhaust system, or headers. You already have the intake, get the exhaust or the headers, that way you would have the first three things you need for performance.

[sxse]

that way you would have the first three things you need for performance.

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1st 3 things taht you would need for ENGINE performance... In my humble oppinion I'd still say get the struts, performance in the twisties is more fun to me and you'll notice the most improvement...

unless of course you dont think you'll muffler will last long, then I'd go w/ that... Either way it sounds liek you'll be getting both soon so it doesnt really matter. Just have fun!

[fiznat]

I say go for the exhaust. I figure since christmas is coming up, you could even ask Santa for the cheaper stuff, ya know? Youd probably have better luck askin for the $200 struts or shifter than a $500 exhaust, no?

Hahaha either that or put the money into moving off your Mom's land, sucker.

[APEXi240]

Since you are OK financially, don't worry too much about making extra payments.

As is now, I'd say get the struts, I know that feeling of having parts sitting around, not putting them on. Needless to say it sucks.

Just so you know...cat-back system is a waste of money. I bought a no-name muffler, and got meinekie (sp) piping. The piping was mandrel bent...so I ended up paying 250 for an exhaust...an Apexi is 540, with the same gains. If you want the look, get an Apexi muffler, that's what I'm switching mine to in the spring.