If you're an "avid" reader of the blog, you know that nearly a year ago we paid off the last of our 100k+ debt. See Here. SO, we are coming up on a year of being completely debt-free!! I must say, it's been a great year. Throughout that year, we've been saving and saving for a new car. We've test drove the Toyota Highlander, Honda Pilot, Ford Explorer, Infiniti JX, and the new Nissan Pathfinder.
My personal favorite from the get-go (after all the test drives) was the Infiniti. I liked that it was unique, the interior and exterior were beautiful and not cheaply made, and I liked the extras it came with that were standard. Josh also loved the Infiniti, but we weren't sure if the extra price was worth it. So, a close second was the Ford Explorer. We liked the thought of having two captain chairs as opposed to the bench style backseat. The interior of the explorer was also rather nice, but still second place to the Infiniti. We left the Ford dealer pretty much thinking that we were probably going to go with the Ford because it was cheaper. We then ran the numbers for each car. We found out the captain chairs for the Ford were a bit extra and quite a few other things that were standard on the JX, were extra on the Ford. SO, when it came down to numbers, the difference between the Ford that we wanted and the JX that we loved was about $3,000. We.were.shocked! Why get a Ford, when you can get a "luxury" car for just a little more? Not to mention, a better resale value.
During Josh's birthday trip, we spent the last day in Austin dealing wtih the Infiniti dealer there. The biggest shocker was after working with the San Antonio Infiniti dealer for the past year, not once did they mention that Infiniti does a military discount similar to employee pricing. That was one of the first things the Austin dealer had mentioned, so we decided to stick with them. And SUPER long story short, we have a car being delivered to Austin for us from Baton Rouge, and if all goes well, we will pick it up Memorial Day weekend.
Another long story short, we sold my car! I posted it on the base yard sale page late Saturday evening, Sunday morning we had a bite, Tuesday afternoon it was sold!! We were able to get KBB value on it as well. SO, goodbye to Coby.
Debt-free/slightly pride-filled sidenote. Spending a little over 40k on a car is a HUGE deal to us, so we were rather meticulous with a lot of things and debated the purchase throughout the past year. I found myself having to justify the purchase in my head in order to defend it, if anyone thought we were being too spendy. I came up with this. I have been driving the very base base base model of a nice new 2006 Chevy Cobalt. I had taken great care of it and because I started off with a cheap car, that was more money we saved in paying off other debt. After selling the car, I realized that that car only cost me $1070/year to have!! That's pretty awesome. I had mentioned that we had been saving so that in addition to the sale of my car, we are going to be able to put half down in cash. Praise the Lord for financial responsibility. We were also eligible for an amazing loan rate through USAA. So, this car should take us about 2 years, MAX, to pay off. And, if I have to validate it anymore, all the debt we have is a car payment. Amazing. Plus, with this being a 7 seater, we plan on having this car FOREVER.
Without further ado, out with the old, and in with the new:
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