I mailed off the title and other release information for the Accord this afternoon, and once that’s been received and filed, we should be getting an electronic deposit from the insurance company for the value of the vehicle. While digging through my records for the proper paperwork I came across the original CarMax listing for it, as well as the original loan paperwork. We bought it with 25,000 miles back in 2012 and hit the deer at 102,939, for an average of ~7,080 miles a year. I’m sure COVID had a huge impact on this number, but even if I subtract three full years, that’s still a little less than 10K per year. With the ending valuation from USAA, the Accord only depreciated $636/year in the 11 years we owned it. The other interesting thing is that our APR in 2012 was 4%; right now USAA is at 6%. We were able to pay it off in 2017 a few years ahead of schedule due to some well-timed freelance checks coming in, and I hope we can do the same with whatever we wind up buying this year. I updated the research chart with some new numbers and a down payment of $12,000.

After some miscommunication with USAA and Enterprise regarding the wildly overpriced rental we were given in New York, I finally got an excellent CSR on the phone and she straightened everything out. One thing I learned is that our rental will only be covered until next Wednesday, and we’ll have to return it then or pay to extend it. We can get by with one car for a while with some careful oversight of our complicated calendars, but it will be good to have two foul-weather cars on the road as soon as we can.