Car Shopping Fun

Let me just say that I am super pumped.

Why, you may ask?

Because we're about to do some car shopping! Yay!

If you read my post from yesterday, you know that I love to shop. Doesn't matter what it's for, I will shop for it and be absolutely the happiest girl in the world.

Car shopping is no exception.

This will be the next biggest shopping experience Chris and I have shared together, biggest being our house. This isn't quite as major as a house, nor as much of a dyer need since he has a work truck to drive while I drive his car, so we can be a little more picky.

We sold my truck a couple of weeks ago, and that was a huge blessing. We hadn't planned on selling it this soon, but when we found out that I was driving on four tires that could explode at any given moment, plus it needed a lot of maintenance, we decided that it just wasn't worth putting that much money into it. After all, the truck was 13 years old with a V8 engine (I think that's right...either way,it's a gas-guzzler). Not super practical to drive back and forth to work like I have been for the past 3 1/2 years, and won't be practical when we have to get a car seat in and out of it (which will not be any time soon, not trying to make a sly announcement here).

I used to drive a Chevy Impala, which I totaled. I loved it, but once I found out I had bent the car frame after running into the back of someone going only 15-20 MPH AT MOST, which did very little damage to her car, I decided that the car is too unsafe to drive. Imagine if I had hit her at a higher speed, or I was hit on the side. Way too much of a risk, I think I'll be looking at some foreign cars instead.

Chris and I have talked about this a good bit. Well, it was more me asking questions of what I can/cannot look at and him giving me a few things to think about while looking. I'm glad he has, though. He's a lot better at these decisions than I am, and since he does our finances, I figured he has a bigger say-so too. We've come to the agreement that we want either a Honda, Hyundai, or Toyota. We prefer leather seats, fairly room-y back seat, and good gas mileage with minimal miles, all while staying within our budget.

Shouldn't be too hard, right?

So much harder than finding a cute top for a date night.

You have so many different factors: go with a dealer or private party. If you go with a dealer do you use a large dealership or a smaller one? Buy one with better gas mileage but high miles or vice versa? Then you have the same car with leather seats in twelve different color-combination options.

It's so daggum much, and so daggum overwhelming.

We're not in a huge hurry, so we can take our time and really try to find what we want. But I'm starting to think that may not be as great of a thing as I was expecting.

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice? What we should not skimp out on or what we can have a little leeway with? We're looking to make this car last us a long, long while.

Help!!