New car!

Well I hate to admit again that I have not blogged in a while. Life has just been crazy busy the last few weeks with end of school activities and warm weather that draws me outside to putz around in the garden and go for drives around town and surrounding areas. And when I am inside there is work that never ends both for the websites and around the house.

But I wanted to get a blog post out about my "new" car. This weekend we bought a 2002 Mercury Mountaineer. The blue book price on this fully loaded SUV was over $10,000 but we scored ours for a little over $5,000 cash and I just love the notion that we own a newer car and it is paid in full and it's ours. I was not really in the market for a new car but I was just talking to my husband about maybe looking for something to replace the mini van because I wanted to give my oldest daughter the mini-van for her 18th birthday (nothing cooler than an 18 year old in a mini van LOL) so he saw the Mountaineer in a lot here where folks park their cars for sale and checked it out. Then came home and made me check it out. I loved it at first site, it was just what I was looking for size wise (has to fit 6-7 folks) but not too big like a Suburban. Plus it had low miles for a 2002 (80k) and given that I don't do a whole lot of driving anyways (300-400 miles a month) it was a good deal. I came home, pulled a Carfax report on it and did my research to make sure the car checked out and we went back and made an offer. I was so excited to get a great deal on a car and be able to pay cash!

Here is a picture I found online of pretty much the same one we got....

Today my husband has the day off and is going to run around getting it registered and all that paperwork stuff and running to the local Ford dealership to get a new key, see if they can re-set the keyless entry stuff and check out the only thing wrong with it, a window that does not open unless the door is open (weird).

So it pays to save a little money each month and pay cash. I have no plans of ever financing a car and think that paying cash for a used car is the way to go. The money saved can be a small fortune and you do not have to drive a beater either. There are a lot of nice used cars out there that can be found for quite a bargain! I will continue to save money each month in a car fund for repairs or in a few years upgrade to something else when the time is right.