We made it home!! Actually we got home around 1, but we had people in and out all day buying stuff from our Craigslist ad. I can’t believe it! I drove a friggin’ RV through Brooklyn! Well let me tell you how it all went down.
We were supposed to be at the dealer at 9. However, we decided to stop by a Commerce bank and cash in a huge jar of change we had. (For those of you who don’t know, Commerce bank has free change counting machines.) We had about a few hundred dollars and that really helped when it came time for the money to change hands.
Before we left the house I had printed out a Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) checklist. I had read so many blogs and forum posts about people having serious problems with their RVs because they didn’t go over it good enough before they drove it off the lot. When we get there I told the dealer I wanted to go over this PDI checklist starting with the exterior. However, once he started showing us the ins and outs I kind of chickened out. The dealer seemed so nice that I just didn’t want to take up too much of his time. To make matters worse, the kids were running in and out of the RV, so I had to wrangle them while CM learned how to work all of the buttons. Two hours later I’m driving the RV home and I discover a chip in the windshield the size of a nickel. And sure enough, my list had a checkbox for the windows.
I would like to say that the hairiest part of the morning was paying the dealer. As you all know, our loan only covered about 60% of the RV cost. The rest was savings, cash, and credit. Well, my bank is in Hawaii and there’s a 6 hour time difference. I called them the night before to let them know that I would be making a very large purchase using my debit card. They assured me that it would be fine as long I had enough money in my account to cover the bill. WRONG!!
He ran my card twice and it was immediately declined both times! Luckily, I had my checkbook with me and the dealer was kind enough to accept a personal check instead. If I hadn’t have grabbed my checkbook as a backup we would have had to wait five hours for the bank to open and have this resolved. Even though I’ve been with this bank since I was 14, I’m closing my accounts. That being said, here’s todays lesson:
Daily Wisdom: When planning large debit/credit purchases, call your bank beforehand to make sure they don’t have a daily limit on charges. Also bring your checkbook as a “Plan B”.
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