A new era

This weekend, we quietly, and somewhat more quickly than we'd anticipated, moved our family into a new era.  It may not seem like a huge deal - it's just a used car - but this weekend we bought our very first minivan. 

(No, that's not our exact car, but that's what we got.)  A 2006 silver Toyota Sienna. 

We have obviously been concerned about our transportation situation, since our previous family car, the beloved Subaru Outback, barely had room for two car seats and the toys, books, diaper bag, etc., that inevitably ended up riding around with us everywhere we went.  We knew we'd have to buy at least new car seats in order to fit three in the back.  But we've been extra careful with our money since we found out about the pregnancy, and we decided that, if we could get a certain amount for the Outback, and we could put about that much cash toward a minivan, we'd be able to get something used.

We've been talking about it a lot, particularly since we completed our move, but ended up deciding to wait until we'd paid the attorney for Levi's adoption finalization to put an exact number on what we could put toward a minivan.  So, Friday morning, when we got ready to put the contracts and fees in the mail to her,  we felt like it was time to start the conversation more earnestly.  I'd been watching craigslist and the USAA car buying service websites, as well as consulting the Kelley Blue Book website to see which of those were fair/good deals and which were asking way too much.  With my few months of research, we had a pretty good idea when we went online about what to look for.  (Oh, and we were interested in a Honda Odyssey or the Sienna, just from the reviews we'd read and advice from others, and knowing we'd have to get a car that was at least a few years old.)

So we found what we thought to be a few good deals and set out after lunch on Saturday to check them out.  The first one we were going to see was not on the lot anymore when we got there.  The sales guy apologized and said that on the holiday weekend, things were moving really quickly.  (Sure.)  He then tried to sell us a practically brand new Ford Flex.  Sorry, buddy, but we knew what we wanted, and, anyway, that certainly wasn't in our price range.

We were close to the Toyota dealership at that point, so we just decided to go over there to see what they had, if anything, in our price range.  Turns out, that ended up being our "home" for the afternoon.  They said they had one car that fit what we were looking for and took us on a golf cart to go see it.  (Personally, I'm pretty sure that was Lucas' favorite part of the day.)  We looked at the minivan, and were able to talk about what we would be willing to pay for it (at that point, we didn't know what they were asking for it.)  If it had been in pristine condition, we would have paid more, but it had more miles on it than we'd hoped for (though, no more than the Outback had) and it had been clearly a family car.  It is certainly not in bad shape, but you can see where the years of kids in the backseats for road trips and every day trips have left their mark.

The car salesman who was working with us drove us back to the main building and we were able to sit at a table, have some water (they also had a popcorn machine and Lucas loved having that snack!), and find out just what maintenance they had done to the car and what they were asking for it.  When they came back with the first number, we knew there was no much chance we'd be willing to pay that much for a car with almost as many miles as the car we already had, even though it was 5 years newer, had the third row we were looking for, and was AWD.  From my research I knew that even if we would be willing to wait a few more days or weeks, I was pretty confident we could find another Sienna for that price with fewer miles on it.  Even so, we decided to have them evaluate the Outback to see what we could get as a trade-in value for it.  Again, that came back kind of lower than what we'd expected.  We were talking to the manager and the sales guy at that point, and the manager was a very nice guy who was very interested in Levi's adoption story.  I'm not sure if our situation played into anything here, but eventually, after test driving the car, and spending the afternoon negotiating back and forth, they finally accepted an offer that we were comfortable with.  I was really quite proud of Daniel all afternoon (partly because he's been dreading this process since we started talking about the fact that we'd have to do it and partly because he was really quite firm with what we were willing to pay for and what we weren't) and we walked out of the dealership with our boys (who were amazingly well behaved for such a long, boring afternoon) and our new keys.  We moved our things from the Outback to the Sienna and drove off in our new van.  We also, by God's grace, own the van outright and didn't have to finance a penny of it. 

Again, compared to what they told us they wanted for the van at the beginning of the afternoon, we walked away with a steal.  I still don't know if they took pity on us because of our situation (military, adoption, unexpected pregnancy, etc.) or if they saw we really were ready to walk away if we couldn't get it down to a certain price.  Either way, we're very happy with our purchase and very, very thankful that God provided this car for us and in such a way that we are not in a tricky financial situation before we add another baby to our family in a few short months.  And, of course, we're happy to have one more thing crossed off the list of "Things To Do Before Baby Comes."  And Daniel is extra happy to be done with the car buying thing for, hopefully, many more years.