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Powered by LifeTypeHeather remarked at dinner tonight (at the Olive Garden - thanks Wightmans, we've got 7 more dinners at this rate to celebrate our anniversary) that we are a rich family: we now own two cars and two houses. I did realize that some people spend more on their cars than we spent on our first house, but nevertheless, we have been blessed financially.
Our new vehicle is a 1997 Oldsmobile Silhouette van in near perfect condition - the seller is more meticulous and pays more attention to details than I do, if you can believe that.
I had it checked out by a mechanic today, and outside of one rust spot and some brake work, the mechanic was amazed that it was a 97 (with 100K miles on it).
He doesn't like the power doors or way back windows, so he disabled them, so I'll have to see about fixing that. It is nice to have the room of a minivan again and air conditioning is a nice feature too, and will make our trip to Connecticut this summer much more bearable.
Also, now that we aren't packed so tightly together, Noah can undo his seatbelt by himself, which he could almost do in the car, but not without some coaching.
The seller was an Oldsmobile salesman, and so got various free things from the dealership, and had the car taken care of by the dealership all along.
Our credit card saves 2% of all of our purchases in a savings account of sorts, and then when we tell them we bought a car, they send us a check, so we'll be getting around $1000 from them, which makes buying a van that much easier.
Now we just need to figure out who wants our old car.
Congratulations! That's great news.
if you fix the atuo-clsoe doors on the van, make sure there is a safety feature of stopping if something (or someone) is in the way. :) already our boys have been in the way of a few closings and we've only had our new-used van less than two weeks! :)
but congrats! you'll love the mini-van, i think. it's a comfort ride, for sure! :)
Watch out! Now that you're rich, someone we know wants to raise your taxes.
Fortunately, all of the politicians who were talking about "rich" people were talking about people far richer than us.
But, yes, I expect our taxes to increase to pay for everyone else's health care and various bailouts, etc.
I'd suggest selling your old car to a recently arrived international student, though I suppose that means waiting another two months. Or maybe a kid at church that's just getting his driver's license.
Know any students? A person I've been talking to about figuring out a monthly payment sort of deal seems like it won't really work very well.