We bought a new car...

We Kept this one!!!

 It's been a busy summer at our house, and with fall officially here, I found the time to log-in only to realize "its been awhile" since I posted.... and we have had a lot of big money changes happening in September because we decided to buy a car... (yes you read that right).

"Stitch," the blue camry I drove for 13 years (after buying it used) was recently sold for $600 cash, and was replaced with a yet to be named "new to us" 2018 Subaru Outback with 7,200 miles on it with a kick butt warranty.

So why did we buy a new car a year before we planned to?  Because last year we faced over $3,500 in maintenance on the camry, and the car was only worth around $1200 on the private market... but since we are cash for cars kind of people, and wanted more time to save, we paid it vowing it would be the last year we would do major repairs on the car. No exceptions.

So, when I went in for an oil change this month, and paid another $230 to fix a leak and get the oil changed, we were given an estimate of another $1,000 to repair yet another thing on the car that had died. (This year already we paid $450 for a new starter -- it was the original one--- ... and I had to pay $160 for a new driver side mirror cause someone clipped my parked car and drove away-- so "Stitch" had a black mirror on its blue car when we sold it).

Given the fact that the car was safe to drive sans the repair (Mechanic said we could probably put it off 3-6 months before it would NEED fixing for safety), we took a moment to think smartly.

• The Camry needed an oil change every 3,000 miles because it burned oil like no ones business.
• The Camry had two ... yes two not valid in California Catalytic Converters... (but it could pass smog/omission levels...)
• Burned oil every time it turned on out the tail pipe a little...
• Hard started to make a new noise at times not related to the needed repair above...
• Had more miles on it than the Escort, (140,000 vs. 120,000)
• And was the car we primarily drove as a family, so we were in it often... and felt each time little dude would kick one of us with his growing legs.

So we decided, to not pay $1,000 to fix the Camry and would take the less popular decision to instead, keep the 2003 Ford Escort. Our mechanics know parts are hard to find for it, but when I went through the list above with them, and told them we didn't care how Frankenstein his car got if it ran since the Escort just had a check up and was given a clean bill of health, had lower miles, and had no issues with major car components or indicators of issues, we decided to making it strictly a commuter car and bounce the Camry. 

I had a Friday off work, and despite knowing we were fond of a Subaru Outback from a previous test drive, I didn't want to pay above $30,000 for the sticker price on a car.

So I hit 4 dealerships in a single day BY MYSELF.

We had a list of safety features we wanted since we would (baring a car accident or act of god), essentially be picking Eli's first car if we traditionally keep it 13-15 years and it had been a LONG time since I upgraded. Things like back-up cameras are apparently standard now... which is awesome.

I hit Toyota, Honda, and Mazda, in addition to going back to the Subaru dealership to re-test drive an Outback. I wanted all the cars looked at in one day so the preferences were there and I could rank them, and see what was standard, and what trim line I would have to purchase with a combination of features to get what I wanted.

At the end of the day, I sat in the Outback and was sold. Some of the other cars felt "cheap quality" (Mazda), the Honda would force us to by a trim package with a sunroof and extra nav we didn't want (No garage or carport means no sunroof... hubs worked in  a carwash for a long time), and while I was liking the Rav 4... the back seat was at a weird angle and felt too inclined. -- because yes, I sat in every seat in the car, with the engine running, felt the AC, pushed the seats all the way back to get a feel for what it would be with hubs driving, and then made the larger salesmen sit in the seat to see how much room THEY had north of 6 feet. :) 

So we knew we wanted a Subaru Outback... Only problem was they didn't have any used 2018-2019 cars with the features we wanted... or they didn't when we went in to the dealer previously....

That Friday, on their lot was a 2018 with 7,200 miles... and all the safety features we wanted, in a car with cloth seats, no sunroof, and a heavy duty floor mat in the back... It also wasn't a push button start, which was something I wasn't quite ready to get behind yet. So it was perfect.

For those of you who don't know, most Subaru's are still on the road after 10 years, so in order to find a certified used one, you are basically looking at lease returns or rentals and hoping for low mileage. We knew with the new 2020 models hitting the lot (and that you never really want to purchase the first year of new upgrades because there will be kinks that need to be worked out), if we didn't want to buy a NEW car, now was really the time... and this car was going home with us. 

After some sweet negotiating skills, we got it for $26,195, $1200 below their sticker/offer price. The negotiating alone is almost a whole blog post on itself because they had sold this car on paper, but someone else drove off the lot in a different car.... and my interest in this car was the only reason they cause the mistake they made 15 days ago.... (lets say someone got a serious "chew-out" session) and their dealership only made a couple thousand dollars off us as I got a peak at their profit loss screen on the car. 

They not only gave us the remaining time on the original 3 year 36,000 mile warranty.. (so free oil and service for 2 years), since it was certified used, it came with an additional 7 year 100,000 mile warranty. Since cars now have multiple computers on them and i'm a pretty low mileage driver (less than 12k a year), we elected to pay $1500 to extend the 3 year 36,000 mile warranty covered items to match the 7 year, 100,000 coverage. So basically everything on the car besides basic wear and tear is covered for 6 more years.

After taxes, registration, and the added insurance, we wrote a check for just over $30,200.00

We didn't have $30,000 in our car fund, but we moved some money around and depleted some of our additional "non-bill" related savings such as our $1500 vacation fund, $1000 technology/phone fund, $1000 medical/doctor savings, and $1,000 from our Roxy fund... and emptied our slush fund.... and pulled $4500 from our emergency fund...

• We pulled from the emergency fund because Hubs is unexpectedly getting a $2k company bonus out of no where??? AND we had added 2k to it this year, so it was like reversing that deposit... and we will replace $600 back into it from the sell of the camry. 

We should also be able to replenish the funds soon because we have enacted a very strict spending policy between now and the end of the year (sans Christmas). We are on "gas and groceries" cycle and are avoiding stores, Amazon, and Walmart like its the flu... or cancer...

But we have a new to us car now that runs, and its super fun and exciting to drive it every day! And I have absolutely no guilt over the purchase, which is, in fact AMAZING!