Judge Milian (The People’s Court) always advises getting a used car inspected by a mechanic before buying it. Finally I understand how to do this.

Every time a case comes up with a used car problem, the plaintiff is asked: “Did you have the car inspected?”Plaintiff: muttering “um, well...no” “kinda” “Seller sent me to the mechanic.” I felt for each and every one of them. Who has extra money for an inspection?It took me an embarrassing amount of watched cases, but I finally got it.A pre-purchase inspection isn’t about finding extra money. It’s about pre-planning to try to avoid problems with the money one has. If one spends $100 to find out a car is a lemon, one’s saving money.Say one has $3000 to buy a car, total. This doesn’t mean one lucks out finding a car for $2700. It doesn’t mean finding a beautiful ride for $3300, charging the $300, and taking over payments.This means budgeting $100-200 for a Pre-Purchase Inspection. It means figuring out the fees and insurance. This means one really has about $2000-2500. This means one doesn’t get tempted by the Mercedes, the BMW, (horribly high maintenance costs), the cool old Suburban (gasoline costs.)I’ve never been tempted by the brand of the vehicle, but I see unscrupulous dealers take in buyers all the time on the program and it’s easy to understand the buyer’s longing for a piece of what they’re constantly told is a visible measure of their success. Even if the beautiful ride is sold at a seeming loss just because the seller is a family member...the strings attached will end up translating into $$ owed or needed to actually use the car.I’ve always frantically gathered money and thrown it at a problem, only to feel helpless and/or foolish when the problem wasn’t solved at all, at all. I saw these unhappy plaintiffs on The People’s Court finally understand that “as-is” meant “as-is” and I understood exactly how they felt. I also knew that even with my precious “book-smarts” intact, I was missing a necessary street sensibility, just like them.When I finally grasped what the judge was trying to convey, I felt silly and smart at the time. I also remembered a friend (named Karen) who consistently put her money into different envelopes and planned her finances that way, as she’d been raised.And the light dawned upon me some more!I wasn’t raised that way.It was feast or famine with us. Stability was not a possibility, though my parents longed for it.When one grows up living hand to mouth, it seems like Catch-22 problems are part of the menu...unless one is financially savvy or walks backward into a budget planning class. I wasn’t and I didn’t, so I’ve lived a Catch-22 life. But I want to change that, and share any possible solutions. I was really happy to find this subreddit!TL: DR; It’s okay to plan ahead, even if plans change. It’s okay to separate one’s meager funds and make them work for you to avoid more money worries.