price hike | River's world…..

The husband has been trying to talk me into trading in my 2014 Subaru Forester for years now. But I love Ethel, and she only has 64,000 gentle miles, so I keep saying no.

Determined to prove that now is the perfect time to upgrade, I allowed him to drag me to a dealership to check out the 2022 models. There was only one problem.

There aren’t any 2022 models.

We checked 4 dealerships, but due to chip shortages and shipping backlogs the closest they could show me was a 2021 loaner of an entirely different grade.

The husband insisted we test drive it, which we did. And while I admit it was newer and a bit peppier than mine, I was less than thrilled with the new energy conserving process that shuts off the engine every time you idle at a stop light. While the actual shutting down was smooth, the restart was jarring and bound to be annoying over time. They told us we could disable the feature, but it would have to be done every single time we drove as it resets to default.

For $38,000 plus? I said no thanks. But the husband was pushing me to order a new one and wait God knows how many months to get it….

So he dragged me into the salesman’s office and had them appraise Ethel for a trade.

My Ethel.

I understand she’s 7 years old.. but she has low mileage and is loaded (with heated leather seats, back up camera, Nav and panoramic moon roof). My absolutely perfect Ethel… who Kelly Blue Book says has a trade in value of $16,500 and a private sale value of $17,800?

They offered us $10,000.

And that was all it took for my husband to be insulted, leave and stop badgering me to trade my vehicle.

Thank you Covid 19. Your virus induced shortages actually benefitted me this time around.