Your vehicle is your paycheck's lifeline. Profile it, scan what's likely to break in the next 12 months, check your exposure, and get the exact per-paycheck set-aside that keeps a breakdown from becoming a missed shift.
Age, miles, and how hard you run it set the risk baseline.
Toggle what's likely to come due in the next 12 months. Adjust the cost to your shop's prices.
If a wreck or major claim hit tomorrow, could you cover the deductible in cash?
The predicted 12-month bill, split evenly across every paycheck.
Log every repair with the Truck & Equipment Maintenance Log and track the fund with the Sinking Funds Tracker on Gumroad — grab the free Paycheck Protection Checklist too.
Get the Tools on GumroadOffice workers can work from a couch with a dead car. A shift worker can't. No ride means no shift, no shift means no check — and most warehouse and plant jobs run on strict attendance point systems, so one breakdown can cost the job itself, not just a day's pay.
That turns a $600 repair into a five-figure income problem. For anyone whose paycheck depends on physically showing up, the vehicle isn't transportation — it's income equipment, and it has to be defended like it.
Compare the repair against one year of payments on the replacement. A $1,800 transmission job feels brutal — but a $350/month car note is $4,200 a year, plus higher insurance, plus a down payment gone. If the repair buys you another year or more of driving, it usually wins by thousands.
Replace when repairs stack past roughly 50% of the vehicle's value in a single year, when the frame or structure is compromised, or when it leaves you stranded repeatedly — reliability is the whole point. Run the predicted total from Step 2 against your vehicle's value: that's your repair-vs-replace line.
Before aggressive extra debt payments, stack $500 in a dedicated repair buffer. $500 covers the most common job-killers — a battery, a starter, a set of brake pads, a tow plus a minor fix — in cash, same day, no credit card.
Without it, every breakdown goes on a card at 25%+ interest, and the "extra debt payment" you just made comes right back with interest attached. Buffer first, then attack debt, then grow the buffer into a full maintenance fund using the per-paycheck set-aside from this plan.
The free tool gives you the number. This tracker gives you the system you keep using — one-time $5.95, yours to print and reprint.
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