Trying to fix BIllys Truck

Right now Billy drives a 1976 Ford truck. He and his friend scott fixed it up a few years ago to drive. well it's a Very bare truck. No padding inside just a Seat and dashboard. I Hate that! It scares me to death when he drives it. Especially when he's got the kids with him. Plus the stupid truck Sucks Gas so much! I mean he's getting around $20.00 of Gas every other day!! We can Not afford that! He still has his 1993 Ford truck too and it's just sitting in the driveway and we've been getting parts off of it whenever My truck needs them. My truck Sucks too! Always tearing up and breaking down But we really can't afford to get a New vehicle right now. :( A real catch 22. We need a car but can't afford one But then we'd probably save a LOT on gas and parts If we got one. Arrgghh! What to do?!
So anyway Billy went over to his friends house last night to try to fix a part on his 1973 truck. Come to find out he needs a new part for it. It's got something to do with the drive line or something. The way he explained it to me is that if he Or I were driving it and that bad part went out there was NO way to Steer the truck! OMG that's Scary!! Well last night he didn't know if we could even afford the new part so he just came home with the truck. We could have afford it but he didn't know that. He told Scott that he'd get the part Thursday and they'd fix it friday. Well we got to talking about it and figured that it would be Cheaper and better if we went and fixed the Other truck the 1993 one. So i got online last night. ( I LOVE being able to research online lol) and figured out how much everything he needed for his truck would cost. Well it is almost $100.00 Not to bad BUT we don't have that much right now. =( I Hate being broke! I am subbing as much as I can but I only get paid once a month. Which does mean that I have a check coming to me. It should be around $170 or maybe a little less.
So anyway lol. Billy said that the 93 truck would be better on gas So I researched online last night about Thermostat housings for his 93 truck. well of course none of the area Parts stores have that! since his truck is older! So I found a site that had one! and only $12.00! Wow! So we went ahead and bought it. Yeah! So it should get here in a couple of days. All in all it was $17.89 with the tax. We also decided that we'd buy parts for the truck as we could. But i'm hoping that we'll have the extra $$ to get them all soon. It would be Very worth it if it saves us money on gas.