You need to learn how to master craigslist. Here is the easy version. Every weekend or whatever days you have a full day off. FULL DAY. Get onto Craigslist, get all your food for the day, make it a car search work day, and hit the refresh button on CL every 5 minutes. The things you see on Craigslist even one day after they are posted are often not the killer deals that people are waiting to jump on and are gone in 20 minutes and deleted due to too many inquiries. That think looks ragged. You need to wait for some old guy with a clean whatever year Miata,who garages his miata, takes care of it, and wants to pick up another car but refuses to accept a dealerships lowball price. These kinds of nice, middle class people are willing to sell a VERY clean car for a very reasonable price IF the buyer is a nice person who is not giving bs'ing them or trying to get an even bigger discount. Have cash ready, as soon as you see a clean one, call them, email them, tell them you want and need the car and be aggressive and enthusiastic. Do this and I guarantee you will find a clean *** whip.

Whatever you do, I would make sure it's 100% made in Japan. All you have to do is look at the window sticker.