Sorry if this one's not really of any interest to anyone, I've just been sorting some stuff out today and my mind is refusing to let me get to sleep, so I'm hoping writing this will help me relax.
I'm spoilering the background to my question to the boards, since it's a bit of a wall of text.
I'd only had this one for a year. One of the older model Gilera Fuoco 500s, second hand when I got it but with less than 5000 km on it. Buying it helped put me into debt, though that was also partially to do with moving house and having some other stuff going on at the same time. But I didn't mind, cause I'd had my eye on it for a while, and had just got my provisional license, so it seemed like perfect timing.
I quickly learnt that although I loved the extra power and features, and it made rides down the coast (3 hour or so trip) to visit family much more comfortable, with the trip up the mountain being a thousand times more pleasant, it certainly was far more of a drain on my finances. Higher maintenance costs than my old scooter, higher registration fees (any bikes/scooters under 300cc in the Australian Capital Territory is around $220 a year to register, anything over is around $650), and fuel consumption was obviously higher (though still ridiculously cheap compared to driving a car).
Anyway, since I'm still paying off my previous loan, I was hopeful that my insurance company would authorise repairs rather than writing it off, since I didn't think I'd be able to find anything reasonable in the price range I could afford with payout from a write-off. Today though, I got told that a write-off is more likely than not (should be confirmed by Monday or Tuesday). So I wandered down to the dealer/mechanic and started looking at some of his second hand scooters.
Turns out that if it IS a write-off, I could be in a better position financially than I was before I crashed. There are two main options. There's a more recent model Fuoco 500, with only a few thousand more km on it than mine currently has (mine is just below 15,000, this one has a bit over 17,000), for about 4/5 of what the payout should be. It'll need a major service in a couple of thousand km, but I'd have enough left over from the payout to cover that and clear my credit card completely, allowing me to focus on paying off my loan faster. I'd still have the higher running costs, but not having the CC to worry about would make that easier. On the other hand, there's another second hand scooter a Piaggio 250-300cc (not sure of the exact model yet, waiting to hear back) that the owner will be available within a week or so, for about 1/3 of the total payout. It's just had it's major service at 20,000 km, comes in at the cheaper rego price and has far lower running costs. Sure, there's less power, but it's still much better than my old scooter (which was a Vietnamese knockoff of the series of scooters this one comes from). Buying that leaves me enough to clear my credit card and a third of my loan, as well as leaving me in a better position to pay off the rest of it faster and leaving me still able to go visit my family, if not in as much comfort or style.
I just thought it was kind of funny how good things can come from something that seems like a total disaster. I mean even if my current scooter does get repaired, I'm still in a reasonable financial situation (I'm slowly but surely paying everything off), but if they do have to write it off and I have to get a new one, I'm pretty much guaranteed to be better off.
So here's my question. Has anyone here ever had something that seems like it's going to potentially ruin their lives in someway turn out to be a boon to them? Have you seen other people have this happen?
Wow. Inspired to review some of my less than stellar experinces over the past few years and loom for the good.
Huh. Just re-read my original post and realised it sounds a bit melodramatic with the "potentially ruin lives" comment. What I was getting at was that when I crashed, and I realised there was no way I could save it, I had a split second where I thought "Oh. This could be it for me." The financial stuff, all of that, it's just something I'd roll with the punches on either way, but that moment of panic is terrifying.
