Monday morning saw a welcome end to what was, at times, an arduous process. I was offered a position with a firm in Minnetonka with whom I interviewed three times over the past ten days. My first day will be Tuesday the 25th!!
Upon hearing the news, my wife was incredibly ecstatic. So much so, she asked “Now can we put our house up for sale?”
SCREEEEEEEEEECH!!!
I compromised. She was willing to “settle” for our first brand new car in our 7 ½ year marriage. As we were filling out the paperwork I came to the portion which asked how long I’d been at my current job, and to list the length of tenure in “Years and Months.” I proceeded to ask the salesperson “Do you have a box labeled ‘number of hours’?”
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Congratulations on the new job! Now, if I may impart a little unsolicited wisdom:
ReplyDeleteEverybody should have the experience of a brand new car once in their life, but it's a pricey luxury that no longer interests my wife or I, especially when you consider the massive depreciation on the car's value when you drive it off the lot.
What we've done for the last several cars we've bought is to get a late model used car with reasonably low mileage. This has allowed us to buy more car for the money, such as the Cadillac STS my wife is currently driving (she'd always wanted a Caddy) or the Mercury Gran Marquis she had before that (that my daughter now drives).
We typically spend less than 10 grand on a car, and have had some real winners. The Marquis now has more than 200,000 miles and still runs very well though it's getting kind of rusty. My '03 Saturn L200 is a great car with a lot of "luxury" items like heated leather seats, and was also very affordable and is very fun to drive. I've just bought my father's '98 Dakota pickup (only 50,000 miles) for less than $6k.
We've had great reliability with all the used vehicles we've bought (some I've traded just because I wanted something different) and great value. If it's not too late, look into getting a premium used car and put the difference in price into a trip for you and your gal! (Be sure to get something with lots of room for your new child - it's amazing how much space those little ones can take up with all their paraphenalia.
Thanks for the sentiments, NW!!
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with your assessment that a premium used car makes more sense financially, we couldn't pass up the incredible bargain we got on an '08. And we also kept in mind the size of the car since baby Carlson we will be with us in about a year or so.
Enjoy the new job, new car ... and baby!
ReplyDelete(P.S. another benefit of our strategy: we've got four cars now and no car payments!)
That is exactly the strategy we used when we bought our Corolla four years ago. It was used with very low mileage. Good thinking night writer! Brad and I have much to look forward to with our adoption process.....I can't wait. Thanks for the kind, good wishes.
ReplyDeleteCongrats, Brad!
ReplyDeleteWe did a similar purchase to Night Rider two years ago — and with a lot of crunching were able to pay for our used car with cash. The salesperson turned cold and invisible once he realized we weren't financing. :-)
It was a rare opportunity to do that, but if you can get a good deal on new, you'll have a great ride for the growing Carlson family!
Congrats! I'm so happy that things are looking up for you two!
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