We Have Assets!!

Last time I posted, I mentioned we were having a relaxing weekend with no plans... Well somehow we decided we'd head to a few car dealers and just LOOK at cars. We have been toying with the idea of buying a new car after driving the Jeep and realizing that although we love the size and much more about it, we did want to have something with a little better gas mileage. We weren't really sure we were ready to make the leap into car ownership, but we did want to get an idea about what was out there and start considering what our options were within our budget.

Yesterday was a stop at Kia (personally didn't even want to consider Kia but we gave it a look), then a quick walk-through at Honda and Ford (avoiding salesmen). We ended yesterday with a stop at the used car lot at a Subaru dealership. We had found a 2011 Ford Focus that seemed quite a possibility. We didn't buy even though the salesman was working us hard (not the biggest fan of car salesmen... I could never do it that's for sure!)

We went to bed last night thinking we'd be buying that car this afternoon. But before we returned to make a final decision, we went back to Honda and Ford to see what they had to offer and talk to salesmen there. Honda was out of our means and not making a decent offer on the Jeep trade-in so we left telling them if they found something within our means to let us know!

Our goal was to get a fair trade-in value on the Jeep for my parents while keeping within our own budget so we wouldn't have to finance and could walk away the owners of a car without having to make payments.

Off to Ford we went and test drove a used Focus, which we liked, but wondered if for the price we could get a new car... So to the new side we went and found a Focus with all kinds of bells and whistles. It was a bit brightly colored and definitely $1000s over our budget plan. Instead, we turned our attention to a Ford Fiesta. And the rest is history!! We didn't think we'd be driving home with a brand new car (the odometer reads 20 miles!!!) It has almost all the features we wanted that we had started resigning ourselves to not getting with our budget.

A few details about our new wheels:
•2012 Ford Fiesta
•4 door, manual (yay!!)
•Hands free, sirius radio, auxiliary and USB :)
•Up to 45 miles per gallon on highway and 29-35 in town!! (comparable to a Hybrid without the tiny engine)
•Rated high for safety

First time car buyers here, and we are feeling pretty proud of ourselves ;) (of course we did make a couple advice calls to parents involving how to handle trade-in and what to look for in a good car (we are so NOT mechanical)). It is weird to think that we have a car. We are pretty excited that we have a car, an actual ASSET!! (one of the dealers along the way was shocked that we'd only ever bought cars as teenagers - you know those ones for a couple thousand, the great starter cars for teenagers!)

The last two days have been a whirlwind of nerves and mushy minds from all the thinking!!! We are excited for it to sink in and even more excited to give the new wheels a spin!!