When I started this blog, I had four cardinal rules to follow. The first, never to name names. I didn’t want to single out people or draw attention to those who didn’t like the spotlight. The second rule was to ‘try’ to keep my entries less than 1000 words. Not doing so well with this one. The third was to use music to compliment the blog entry and capture the theme. The final rule was to never discuss work on this platform. This was basically for the same reason as the first rule. Furthermore, my current employer believes that its disjointed and damaged reputation is a function of its underlings blogging and Tweeting the company news to the outside world thus influencing the media to slant its opinions in a less than favorable direction. Yes, that MUST be it and not the blatantly obvious planning and execution dilemmas plaguing the company or the obvious avoidance of full disclosure of information to the news media within an appropriate time frame.

I decided that while my employer struggles to right itself and threatens the employment of the hardworking underpinnings holding this rickety mess together, I would buy a new automobile. A wiseman might ask ‘Why would you buy a new car with the potential of job loss?’ Ironically, it’s the one element in all of the chaos that I can control. It would be an understatement to say that I’m obsessive about decisions I make in life. My wife would probably characterize me as being a tangled neurotic mess of nerves and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. That’s not too far from the truth. So this thread is more about how I make my uniquely insane, yet educated, decisions and less about the purchased vehicle.

Interestingly enough, it started with an internal dialogue where I convince myself that I need something new. I was driving somewhere for some reason and was annoyed with traffic and the fact that I wanted to drive in a faster/slower/louder/quieter/lower/higher/your attribute here/ vehicle. Once I get to this point, it’s useless to consider any other responsibilities. I end up becoming so consumed by my current vehicular dilemma I generally forget about birthdays, anniversaries, and changing Son #2’s excrement-laden diaper. For this purchase, there were approximately seven unique prospects in different categories and segments that fell in and out of favor over the last two years.

Before I even drove any of the prospects, I began the careful assembly of the greatest financial analysis toolset to support my decision. I like to create spreadsheets to analyze and review stuff. I have spreadsheets for everything from the NPV of household expenses, to ROI on electronics, to long-term investment analysis on family financial status, to bike jump trajectory sensitivity analysis, to Son #2 name/meaning decision trees. I think you get the picture. The latest exercise started with a simple worksheet that outlined financing terms of an auto loan. Then it grew.

I added pull down menus for decisions. Then, fair market value sensitivity for the trade-in vehicles was added. I added dynamic real-time credit terms. The list of vehicles was expanded to include the seven vehicles but with various trim levels, configurations, and respective pricing. This data fed right back into the financial model through the menu driven system. Next was a sensitivity analysis piece which was driven off of the user decision matrix to illustrate the various lending scenarios paired with trade-in/down payment scenarios. All of this was controlled by a simple front end that accessed all of the decision variables on the back end. The goal here was to simulate as many financial scenarios possible for each vehicle.

Time to drive the vehicles and build in a performance metric to help influence decision making. The experience driving the cars is outside the scope of this post. Just know that I may now be on Johnny Law’s radar for neurological harassment of local automotive sellers. I went back and ‘refined’ (read: obsessed over) the spreadsheet. The driving experience and the spreadsheet narrowed the search to a two-vehicle race. Based on my value-indicating, financial-prognosticating, penny-pinching, performance-evaluating, number-obsessing spreadsheet, I finally decided on a vehicle.

The dealership provided eight different options of this vehicle because of my option configuration was impossible to satisfy. I had to make a sacrifice. I needed to build a second financial model spreadsheet for these eight versions. Each one had its own worksheet with its own financial model in the image of my first evaluation tool. This version then factored in manufacturer rebates and refined the trade-in scenario based on the current administration sales tax incentives. On this spreadsheet, I had a summary page which evaluated and scored all of the performance metrics of the vehicles, the positives and negatives of each, the dollars spent per positive and negative attribute, and every other metric I could think of to attach some sort of ‘score’ to. At the end of it all, all eight vehicles had a normalized ‘score’ based on all of the metrics. The top three scores became my three choices.

A deeper evaluation had to be done. Three different vehicles with three different prices and option compromises. Stay with me now, in the second spreadsheet, on each worksheet for my three final choices, I created one more sensitivity analysis based on trade-in and down payment. At this point, I knew my financing and potential cost of ownership. Now I just needed to determine how much the dealer ‘will’ give me for my trade-in. Financially, (trust me here) it made the most sense to trade-in a vehicle and receive the economic tax benefit rather than sell the vehicle outright and put a larger payment down. There was a ’tipping’ point and I had to make sure the dealer gave me a fair market value where I would get the best trade-in assessment.

Long story even longer, I’m the proud owner of a new family mode of transport. Gone is my motorized partner of the last eight years. Am I any more relaxed now that this is behind me? Who knows. But I will say this: at least I can commute to my potentially terminal place of employment in style and not-so-eagerly await the notification of the lack of need of my marketing services. If I am out of work in the future and you are in need of a 10GB spreadsheet that will thoroughly calculate your weekly Starbuck’s bill, I’m your guy.