New Car

I finally got a new car! After 7 years of driving my little piece of crap Chevy Cavalier that I bought when I first moved to Maui (and I swore I would drive until the wheels fell off - and I practically did!!) it just got to be too unreliable and it was time to buy something new. The timing was about right as Friday we'll be paying the last of our $500+/month for Dean's preschool tuition, so we'll have a little extra money come August. Of course, it has been really nice not having a car payment in over 5 years (and we were hoping that money could go into a college fund for Dean) - but you do what you have to do! And I can tell you that it is REALLY REALLY awesome not dreading running errands in the afternoon because I now have a working air conditioner in my car!! And power windows! And I don't have to worry my car is going to break down halfway to work or driving Dean to school! That is a really nice feeling let me tell ya! So now we're just going to try to pay this thing off as fast as we can because Joel's car isn't the nicest either (and he drives A LOT every day for work) so unfortunately we'll probably need to buy something new-er for him in the next year or 2 as well. But for now, it's great having one nice reliable car as opposed to one piece of crap and Joel's less-crappy car.

So what did I get? I got a brand-new (yay! Warranty!!) 2011 Nissan Versa hatchback - the hatchback is really nice to have because of the extra room in the back it gives us. We're definitely NOT car people - we were shopping for function, fuel efficiency, safety, PRICE, and something that we thought would last us awhile. Because we pretty much plan to drive this car for 7+ years as well. We're not the kind of people who need to have a fancy new car every year. As long as it gets us where we need to go and it runs, we're good (but air conditioning and a working CD player sure are nice now that I have them!!). Anyway, here are a few pictures for those of you who are interested:
The last thing to do is to try to sell the Cavalier. Joel listed it on Craigslist this morning. I have no idea what he's asking for it - I told him I want no part of that business. If it's not sold by the end of the week we're probably going to just donate it. Mostly because I don't want to keep paying the insurance on it, which is about $70/month. And parking is a pain in the ass - we can't park in the street in our neighborhood and our garage has too much crap in it to fit 2 cars and I'd rather park the new car in the garage, but then there's too much moving cars around in the morning. {sigh}. So for now the Nissan is outside and the Cavalier is in the garage. Cross your fingers it sells.