Happy Presidents Day!

We celebrated the president's birthdays by buying ourselves a little present.

A 2008 Toyota Highlander.

This particular one isn't ours, obviously. I tried taking pictures once I got it home, but had a hard time getting a good one in the dark. But you get the idea.

The thought of buying a new car has been lingering in the back of my head for a while. I've had my Neon since 2007, and felt like I was ready to move up into the SUV world sometime soon.

I was a little hesitant; however. We recently bought a new washer and dryer, as well as new furniture for our living room / family room. Both were purchased after the wedding, and the thought of buying a new car, adding that to the purchase list, made me a little uneasy.

Regardless, I had been looking a bit on the internet, as well as keeping my eyes out by admiring every SUV we managed to pass on the road.

To add to it, over the weekend I had noticed multiple car sales. Afterall, it was the big "President's Day Sale." So I suggested to Joel that we go look around, just to see what was out there.

I really had no idea as to what kind of car I wanted. I knew that I wanted something that could seat up to 7 people, and would be a good car to start a family with. I'd seen a few that I liked the look of, but other than that pretty much everything was a possibility.

Now let me back up to say how much I strongly DISLIKE car shopping. I don't care for the pushy car salesman. And, I always seem to get overwhelmed with the multitude of choices and which car offers what, nevermind trying to bargain at the end for a decent price.

I was hoping that going to a sale like this, in the parking lot of the local Ranch and Home, would result in a not-so-pushy-salesman. Luckily I was right, and we found a very nice man who lead us to a group of cars that seemed to fit us the best.

We tried out a few cars, but in the end I really liked the Highlander. Long story short, it was a great deal, and after a test drive, we decided that if the numbers worked out, it would be ours. So we did some number crunching. We got back a decent amount for trading in my Neon, and put up a hefty down payment. And after a few hours of paperwork and lots of signatures later, I was able to drive it off the lot!

Really it was somewhat of a spur-of-the-moment purchase. We hadn't particularly researched it too much (although my mom had looked into the Highlanders quite a bit, as that is the car she really wanted as well), but I'd heard good things about it. But, I've determined that I am definately a spur-of-the-moment kind of buyer. Afterall, we did find, buy, and close on our house within a week.

I also decided that this way, I didn't need to do any more car shopping. Like I say, the thought of going to multiple car lots, looking at the multitude of options out there, and trying to decide who had the best deal for what we were looking for. Afterall, here it was, right in front of me, at a great price, being sold by a decent salesman.

You are probably wondering why it turned out to be so cheap. . .?

The only downfall to the whole deal was the amount of miles the car has on it. It's definately more than the average amount one puts on a car in a year. But after some discussion, and finding out that the car had been a rental car for some time (answering some of the question as to why there were so many), we decided this wouldn't hold us back from taking advantage of what a good deal it was. In all reality, we most likely won't be putting any more than the average 12,000 to 15,000 on it each year anyway.

So in the end, I am now driving a new red SUV. I'm definately excited about the purchase, and am definately realizing what a year of purchases it has been for us . . . But we are definately quite thankful to be able to have we do!