Joining the Rest of the Population

Sometime between Saturday late afternoon and today we did it. We knew that we would need to get a bigger car with this baby on the way. We weren't planning on doing anything about a new car until around end of April. We wanted to see what the economy was going to do (or not do) and save some more money. We also knew that we wanted to buy a used car and save on the depreciation and have a smaller payment (something neither one of us have ever had before - big or small). On the other hand, "Now's the time to do it!" was what I heard from just about everyone.

Saturday afternoon, Adam said "Honda is having 0% financing." My meager reply to him was let's just go take a look and see about the Odyssey. After dinner, we lugged the kids with us to the Honda dealer, looked at the Odyssey, got the information catalog, business card, etc., etc., etc., Next stop, the GM dealer. We wanted to compare the Odyssey to a Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon, Yukon XL and see what was going to best fit our family. Both manufacturers had incentives to give, although GM's were HUGE -- $10,000 HUGE!!!!

We talked all night Saturday night. I woke up around 1:30 Sunday morning and was lying awake thinking about our options for the next 2 hours, finally falling back to sleep. I made some calls to a couple of dealerships in CA for them to check their inventory, knowing that we were going out for a short visit to my parents' house for New Year's. Adam called another dealer here, too to find out their inventory and their financing options. After looking at banks for a used car loan and seeing the difference in price in used vs. new, it was clear that a new car was going to be the way to go.

We decided to go back to the Honda dealer and drive the Odyssey. It drove like a dream. Automatic everything, or so it seemed. We didn't need to drive a Yukon because we had both driven those in the past. Hasn't changed that much I'm sure. We liked both of the vehicles, but one was definitely going to suit our family better.

After haggling and haggling for 3 hours (this time with just 1 child with us) at the dealership, we were $1,600 apart, which was the cost of the built-in DVD player. (We can buy 16 portables for for the price of a built-in, but thought it would be nice to have the built-in.) We weren't budging and neither was the dealer. We decided to walk out and go to a different one. By the the time we got home from picking Owen up from my brother's house (thanks Scott & Karina!), there was a message on the answering machine and the salesman (who was great) was calling on the phone. He was calling to tell us that they "found a car in the back" without the DVD player, in the color we wanted, leather, and they would honor the deal they wrote up on a different color car that we liked, but weren't crazy about. We fed the kids and then back to the dealership Adam went.

When Adam got home, he pulled into the driveway driving this:


I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my new car! I never ever thought I would drive a mini-van. I've always liked the Suburban-type vehicles better. But, after looking at all of the options this sucker had to offer, there was no question that this car was the best match for our family. So, it seems that I have joined the rest of the population in driving a mini-van. I am glad to be driving something other than our car. Not that I didn't love driving that, because I did. It's just that with the kids growing and myself growing, I knew we weren't going to fit into it for much longer. While driving I sit up higher, although it doesn't really look like it. It has so much room and so comfy.

Now I feel like a teenager who just got her license to drive because I have a great new car to drive around town!