@BenCrowell half is earning 2.2% interest in a CD. The rest is earning .4% interest, except $500 of it is earning 7% interest - gotta love credit unions.

@jamesqf when I bought my current car, I probably spent two months on CL and almost every car I looked at had issues. I'm sure there are great cars on there, but I'm not mechanically inclined enough to have a good feeling for how significant many potential issues may be.

Interesting idea with the super cheap car. One downside I see is if it breaks down, it may take time to find another car, which isn't practical if you're commuting to work every day; even if it just takes a couple days to find a new car. I'd rather have a nicer used car that I can drive for 150k miles than 15 cars I can drive for 10k miles.

@jamesqf my current car is Mazda, and I am looking at another Mazda. There aren't many Mazda dealers in my area so it's actually a bit difficult to find a low mileage, used Mazda.

@Pete thanks for the great advice! I'm curious about your reasoning to move out of my parent's home though. Could you elaborate on why? I'm in the Northeast so property values and rent is a bit higher than elsewhere. I figured I could save the $1k+ a month I'd be paying to rent a small apartment, and instead put that towards buying a home some day.

@BenMiller, no my only other income was from being employed and interest on a couple of bank accounts