Edited to add: I don't think we're getting this van. All day I've been feeling uneasy about it. I think Nick is going to call and back out of the deal. The van is great, and if we were getting about $1000 more back on our taxes, we'd get it no problem. It was just more than we said we could spend and I want to be sure we have all our other bills paid too. End Edit.
When I was growing up and being the kid who had to ride in a minivan, I swore I'd never drive a minivan. I was going to get an SUV. Fast forward 10+ years and no way do I want a gas guzzling SUV. A mini van is a little more practical, and with two sliding doors on the sides, it'll be much easier. We realized last summer if we wanted more kids (and we do) we couldn't fit them all in our car. With all the new carseat laws, there is no way we could comfortable fit 3 carseats in our backseat. We began discussing the possibilities of a minivan. The more we traveled to Flint (a four or five our trip depending on weather) the more we realized it's becoming a necessity. Packing four people (two toddlers) three times from September to December, and adding the dog one of those times was not a fun thing. Trying to pack Christmas presents in the car with the clothes we needed for five days was a joke. We ended up sending the Christmas presents with my sister.
A couple weeks ago, Nick got into a minor car accident. The front of our car is smashed up, and it was drivable, but now it starts sporadically. The quest to find a vehicle became more intense knowing our tax refund will be here on Friday and we have been without a vehicle for a couple of weeks (thankfully Nick knows people here who work with him and his mom and grandma have let us use their cars as well). We looked online, drove to dealerships. One dealership never sent anyone out to us. Their loss. Another had a lot of minivans on the lot, but they did not take car of them. Almost all of them had tires slashed, big rust spots, things falling off of it, etc. We knew we were looking for a miracle because a decent van just does not sell for what we wanted to pay. We knew we wanted to pay cash (thanks Dave Ramsey!). We currently have a car payment on a car we can't even use right now.
We called a guy from church and he told us he might have something. We visited him at the dealership where he works. We drove the van and loved it. It overheated. Great. Not fun. We also found out another family from St. Louis was driving four hours to get that van, but hadn't put a deposit on it. We decided to pray about it. We continued looking, but wanted to pray hard.
Sunday we found out the other family never showed up. Monday we found out the overheating wasn't a huge thing, and they were fixing it. Great! We are waiting for Friday when our tax return is supposed to be deposited. The only thing keeping us from bringing it home is if the government is behind. If it's not deposited on Friday, I will take that as a sign the door is closing and to look elsewhere. If it's there, we pay cash and bring it home Friday.
Pickleball. Am I Too Old For This?
6 months ago
3 comments:
Hey, good luck as you continue your quest. I'm sorry this one didn't pan out. From one minivan mom to a future minivan mom, believe me, you're definitely making the right decision. I ended up doing lots and lots of internet research for ours. Nothing in our area in Mississippi was what we wanted--we didn't have a ton of cash for all the features we wanted, and I was determined! I ended up finding a dealership in KC through cars.com that had our van. It's a 2001 with absolutely every little feature possible for that year with only 50,000, and I wrangled the price down to what we had, which was $5000 under the blue book value.
Also, this happened one week to the day that the boys came. Whew.
It can be done!!! God will provide! Keep on, keep on, keep on trying!
There are two Gino's downtown. One is on Wells, but the one we usually go to is on Superior. You'd have to google it for the exact location. Somehow we always end up there. It's like our car knows the way.
The vinyl lettering doesn't seem to be removable, but you can always put it on some wood or board or something that is moveable. Stenciling is another great idea. I NEVER painted when we rented. They always wanted us to paint it back, and I knew I wouldn't have the desire!
I just told him I couldn't pay over X amount. They were pretty desperate for a sale (as I'm sure sellers are now, too), so he came down. Don't be afraid to tell them what you want! They're the ones turning down a potential sale.
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