After much anticipation, we finally got a minivan. It's been as awesome as I always knew it would be! I know a lot of people are anti-minivan but I just don't think you can deny all the perks that they have. (And okay, to be honest, I only love the look of the Odysseys, but not really any other minivans) We had been shopping for an Odyssey since last summer, and even came really close to buying one last Fall. But nothing was perfect, and everything was expensive. In fact, around Thanksgiving time we decided to stop looking for a while since it was becoming kind of consuming (car shopping is stressful!). Late one night in February, though, I decided to look at Craigslist really quickly before going to bed. Our ideal has been to find a private seller, to keep costs down. Lo and behold, someone had just listed their Odyssey and it was exactly everything we had been looking for - silver, not too many miles, leather seats, a DVD player, roof racks, and brand new tires. They even had all the service records, which were crazy detailed. To top it all off - the van was local, which was a miracle - usually the good ones are in Orlando or Jacksonville. I figured it must smell like smoke or something... but I emailed the guy anyway and set up a time to test drive it. It was perfect - in fact, it was pretty obvious that the back two rows had never even been sat in. We tested out the DVD player and the guy said he had never even used it. The van even smelled brand new. It's really hard to find nice used minivans (people use them hard!), so we knew we had to make an offer. I negotiated a price that we were comfortable with, and completed the transaction later that week while Garrett was at work. I will admit, it was stressful and a little bit daunting. The car is in my name only, so only *I* could do all the paperwork at the bank, the DMV, etc. Talk about anxiety!
But, it's been so great and I'm happy that we waited for the right one to come along. It's by far the nicest minivan we looked at over the last several months, and it was the most affordable at the same time. I feel so spoiled every time I walk out of the grocery store and can open up Olivia's door AND the trunk to load my groceries, just with the click of 2 buttons on my keys. The kids also enjoyed the DVD player when we drove to Savannah last month. My favorite perk is probably the Bluetooth, though. I always hated listening to the static-y radio in my old car, and now I just listen to Pandora or podcasts.
And of course, a van selfie. I took this right after I drove it away from the bank (which is where I met the seller for the transaction).
No comments:
Post a Comment