Just a quick note… Back in 2004, I was in an accident.  Long story short: This young girl was coming out of a shopping center on to a major road and traffic that was blocking the entrance/exit to the shopping center created a space for her to get through.  She was in an older taurus and this one guy waved her through, but unfortunately, there I was.  She came out in front of me and I "T" boned her and in the process, my foot was injured because my foot was on the break on impact.  Now, she was charged with the accident and her insurance company, Geico paid for the damages to my car (July 2004), but by Feb 2005 they refused to pay for the damages to my foot.  So, I went to see a lawyer about it in Feb 2005.  We’ve been through depositions and the whole nine yards, Tuesday the 17th of October was supposed to be my trial to reach a settlement with Gieco and they finally decided the other day to settle out of court.  I couldn’t believe it.  They settled for a large sum, more than I ever thought I would get, probably twice what I thought I would get.  But unfortunately, the lawyers get 1/3 of it and then other things have to be paid from it, so I probably won’t see much of it.  Regardless, I am extremely excited.  First thing I am going to do is pay off all of the 3 car payments and pay off the 6k to the siding company.  Then we will have extra cash per month.    I will probably buy a new (used) vehicle with the remaining cash from the settlement and give my daughter my "exploder" instead of making her drive the ford probe.  I think we will probably give the probe to one of those car donation places.  I don’t know if you can still get a tax write off or not, but I would rather someone use it than send it to the junk yard when it’s really not junk.