Believe it or not, I feel good about taking some positive action around my unsustainable car payment. I'm three months behind, have no income at the moment, and finally admitted to myself that all the little things I'm doing for food money are never going to cover the car payment, insurance, and overdue registration. So I'm going to give it back to Toyota finance.
I've done a bit of reading online about different outcomes, and I'm really pleased to say that I actually made some phone calls this morning to ask friends for advice. Note - this is during a time when I mostly have my phone off and avoid anyone who tries to call me.
It felt good to reach out some, and gave me the energy to call someone who might want to buy some of my other stuff for a few hundred bucks.
I have a call in to a friend of a friend who works at a Toyota dealership here in L.A., and hopefully talking to him and/or my original dealer will help me navigate this giving-the-car-back voluntary repossession in the best way possible.
But I remembered that all of you are often wise and experienced. So, any suggestions?
The amount I still owe and the blue book value I found online are about the same ($23K), the car is in good condition and only has 6750 miles on it. So I guess my goal is to resolve this with the minimum of new debts/costs and then move on.
I hope you're all having a good day, and thanks again to the really helpful, supportive people who read and commented yesterday.
This feels like forward progress.