Monday, November 3, 2014

Michael's New Car!

This year we have been saving for Michael to get a new car. His car has been dying a slow death. Even though he's not a painter anymore he's done a bunch of side work to save up. I have also been cleaning my parents house every month and saving that money as well. Our plan was to make it to spring of 2015 when our income tax return came in. Back in September the car didn't pass emission and it was going to cost almost $1000 to fix it. We were not willing to invest that kind of money in the car. We did go ahead and pay the $150 for a little bit of work to be done so we could get his tabs....hoping we could make it a few more months. Then a couple weeks later on a Friday night Michael was on his way home and one of his tires blew. The other 3 didn't look any better. So we sat down and ran the numbers and decided it was worth a shot to start looking for a car. 

Michael has had his heart set on a 2006 Ford Fusion for a long time. We were looking on Craigslist and couldn't really find anything listed up here so I decided to check Portland since I've had friends buy cars from Oregon. We found a really nice one for a decent price so we made plans for Michael and my Dad to drive down there the next day. Thankfully I felt that they shouldn't leave until they called the dealership and sure enough...it had sold right after I called inquiring about it the night before. I had been praying that God would make it abundantly clear whether or not we were supposed to buy it and I'd say that was pretty clear. 

So Michael and my Dad started looking online again. They found a couple other options.,..one in Covington and one in Puyallup. The one in Covington was a manual transmission which was actually nice since Michael has been wanting to learn to drive a stick shift. The price was really great and it had low miles....but they were smokers! Again God made it abundantly clear! 

So off to Puyallup they went...a couple hours later I get a call saying they were in negotiations. Michael did a great job. The sticker price was $7900, but he got them to pay us $1500 for his Hyundai...I seriously was going to be happy if they gave us $500 for it. We ended up paying $6400 for the car. It's actually super cool because 5 years ago we paid $3200 for his Hyundai and just like Dave Ramsey says if you save up in about the same time it would take you to pay off an auto loan you can have an even better used car and pay for it in full. That's exactly what we did! Now we'll start saving for his next car and in 5 or 6 years he'll get an even nicer one. I love living this way! 



Bye bye Hyundai....you served us well, but we weren't that sorry to see you go! :) 


Hello 2006 V6 Ford Fusion!


It literally has everything he wanted and my personal favorite...it wasn't white! I never want to owe another white car again! 


I actually got to drive the car home that night since after celebrating at dinner with my parents I had to go back to my parents to finish cleaning their house and Michael had to take the kids home in the van. But the next day Michael got to run back down to the dealership so he could take them the correct title. I accidentally grabbed the title to our van instead of the Hyundai and we signed it over to the dealership. Oops! Oh well we just have to order a new title online. Silly me! 


As Michael was backing out I asked if any of the kids wanted to go in the new car and Jack and Ella jumped at the chance! 


Strapped in and ready to go! 

A couple days later Michael got the car completely detailed since there were a couple scratches that he wanted them to get out. He's also ordered fake leather seat covers for the front seats. It's fun seeing him getting to take pride in a car. The Hyundai was a decent car, but it wasn't really a car that he wanted it was a car he had to have after getting laid off and no longer having a company car to use. This car he got to pick!

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