New Car

So our Subaru was 14 years old and had 170k miles on it but we were really hoping to drive it into the ground. And I guess we did. When we went to get the safety and emissions test last week we were told it needed $600 worth of work immediately and another $1500 in the next year for it to keep running. So we bit the bullet and decided to shop around for a replacement. We decided we wanted something that was 4WD (there are a lot of hills and mountains near our home), something that could hold our entire family for road trips in the winter (the van doesn't do too well in the snow), and it absolutely needed a back-up camera (we have an incredibly steep driveway and I'm paranoid about backing out over a kid). I was really stressed out about the time it would take to shop for a for a car, but we were lucky and Hannah could babysit all day on Labor Day so Marshall and I could shop. We spent hours searching online, narrowed our search down to Toyota Highlanders and Honda Pilots, and then printed off listings for 23 used ones to look at. That morning we called around, weeded out the ones with salvaged titles or that were no longer available, narrowed our preference down to Pilots, and visited a number of dealerships. We were just about to buy a 2011 Pilot with 35K miles on it in Bountiful but I wasn't feeling thrilled about it because it smelled like smoke and came from New Jersey which could mean it was a Hurricane Sandy car with a cleaned title. But just as we were about to buy it the dealership we had visited first thing in the morning in Orem (Ken Garff) called again and offered us an even lower price on a 2013 Honda Pilot EX-L with amazing 0.9% financing (we refused to spend time haggling in the dealership and told them to just call us with their best offers. Three phone calls later we finally got it). We went out for lunch and sat down to work out what we wanted to do and discovered that with the warranty we would have bought for the used one and the higher financing for the used one, we would only be paying about $22/month more for brand new (Pilots really hold their value). So. . .we headed back to the Orem dealership, Marshall picked out his color and options (he will mostly be driving it), and we drove home in our brand new Pilot with only 35 miles!

Mason was excited about the car when we told him he would probably be driving it when he was 16. 

My beloved husband has never had a new car and was beyond thrilled. He spent most of the night in the car playing with the controls and programming things. 

After we got home we wanted to drive somewhere so we took a family trip to Ikea where we bought some furniture I'd been needing to get for the baby's room but couldn't lift myself.