We got a new car... well, new to us!

Micah and I have been discussing getting a second vehicle for some time now. We wanted to make certain that we could afford it as we have never been in any kind of debt before. Anyway, we started looking into cars a couple weeks ago, then the past few days we've really worked hard on it. There were times that were more discouraging than others, but we knew it was smart to look around. After several, and I do mean a lot, exhausting hours of searching we went up to the South Towne AutoMall in Sandy. I had looked up cars online the previous night and we saw a few prospects. Monday had not been encouraging so we weren't too enthusiastic today, but we knew we couldn't give up yet.

So we showed up at the car dealership and they showed us two cars. The first one did not smell good, but it wasn't what we wanted anyway. The second one met all of our criteria. It's a 2005 Chevy Aveo. They offered us the car at 6,990 but Micah being so calm and having done research was able to talk them all the way down to 5,777. I was really so proud of him! We were both a little nervous as we had never bought a car before or gotten a loan, but everything worked out perfectly. In the end, not only was Micah able to talk them down, but we were able to qualify for a loan with an interest rate of only 3.49%, which is crazy for first time loans. We were offered only anywhere from 10.5-12% initially because of our lack of credit history, but they saw that we were responsible, had never made any late payments, and we actually both have a really good credit score. The dealership was absolutely shocked that our credit union gave us that rate, but we were ecstatic!

To make my already long story a little bit shorter, we walked away with the car at a closing cost of 7,006 after tax, title, and other fees. We felt we had done a good job of talking the price down and also getting a good loan. Micah and I truly feel really blessed right now. We wanted to be smart about this decision and stay within our means and in the end I believe our diligence paid off. This is definitely something that we can afford and are honestly happy about. I also feel so much better having a car rather than just the truck to drive our baby around in. I'm so grateful that everything worked out for us.