Big Blue

My check-engine light had been on for awhile...like, a few months. When it came on originally, Husband took it to the mechanic and they said it was a sensor problem - there was nothing wrong with the mechanics of the vehicle, but I'd need to take it to a dealership to fix it. So I called and they said they could get to it NEXT WEEK. That was not convenient, so I tabled it for the time being. And then I sort of forgot about it. I mean, it dinged at me every time I started the car, just like it does when I'm running low on gas, but I got used to that (so used to it, in fact, that I didn't notice my gas gauge one day and ran out of gas...but that's a story for another post).

Finally a few weeks ago, I had a few hours so I called and they said they had immediate availability. I had Husband follow me, I drove it over, and we left it there. The next day, Husband got a phone call. The prognosis was NOT good. It was going to cost $1700 to fix my car. They would give us $1500 in a trade-in.

We were then faced with a dilemma. Do we pay to get the car fixed, or do we get a new car? My car had about 145,000-ish miles on it, had lots of things wrong with it, and after consulting a mechanic who knew the nature of such a problem and told us this could be the tip of the iceberg, fixing the old car was looking less and less appealing. However, the old car was a good car (otherwise) and I had some sentimental ties to it. It's the car I have driven my babies in since they were born! And, most importantly...IT WAS PAID FOR. And since our debt plan includes us being COMPLETELY DONE WITH DEBT BY 2016, BUYING A NEW CAR WOULD BE A BIT OF A SETBACK.

In the old car. She is so stinking cute.

I can't tell you how devastated I was about this whole ordeal. 2015 had been a year of financial wins for us and we had some serious momentum going. Purchasing a new car would bring things to a screeching halt. We talked and prayed, and finally decided that fixing the car was too risky. We needed to bite the bullet and get a new one. I wanted no part of this process (truly, there are no words for how much I HATE this sort of thing), and since I was driving to Oklahoma that weekend anyway, Husband handled the finding of the new vehicle. Of course I wanted a van (we drove Husband's mom's van to Colorado one summer and OHMYGOODNESS it was so nice! There was so much space!) but I was pretty sure we weren't going to be able to afford one. But Husband did thorough research and God provided this:

 Meet Big Blue (as the kids call her). She has lots of things The old car didn't, like space, leather, power seats, power liftgate (which is already revolutionized my grocery shopping game), space, heated seats, driver memory (so that when Rick drives, he doesn't have to manually adjust the seat every single time…he can just push the "driver 2" button), A THIRD ROW, and SO MUCH SPACE. This isn't a great picture, but you can kind of see the third row:

We have already taken it to Oklahoma, grabbed cousins and gone to the library, and taken a road trip with friends (FOUR friends!) to Lawrence. It has been wonderful!

The downside is that we had to take another loan. The good thing about that is that this is the first loan we have taken after completing Financial Peace, so we were much smarter about it. Thanks to good saving and spending habits, we were able to put half down and we will have it paid off within six months. So even though it was a bit of a setback, it was a necessary one. And in the meantime, we are really enjoying our new van!