New Van!

This weekend we traded in our 2008 R.AV4 for a 2006 Toy.ota Sie.nna!  Essentially, we ran out of room.  Our old car technically had 3 seats in the backseat, but we quickly learned that you could not fit 3 people back there.  Since I nanny and in the summer I watch 2 girls, I had Anna's carseat on one side, the 3 year old's carseat on the other side and the 9 year old was stuck sitting in between them.  She didn't complain, but it certainly was not comfortable.  She had to sit sideways in order to find the seatbelt and she had to climb over carseats to get in or out every time.  In addition to having two other kids with me all the time, we realized that with a carseat back there, we couldn't take other people with us really.  There just wasn't room. 

So we talked about it and did our research and learned that our car had a super high trade-in value due to the year it was bought.  That year was the height of the recession and very few cars were made that year at all.  So, there's a demand for that size car with that year and with only 30,000 miles on it, it was in perfect condition.  We'd taken good care of it and it still looked (and smelled) brand new! 

For the last few weeks we've been looking online a lot and had been to a few dealerships and test drove another van.  Then we found one that had everything we were looking for.  It wasn't too old, the price was right, and the mileage was average for the year.  So we went and test drove it.  And fell in love with it.  And realized that they were having a big sale last weekend and the price was $2,000 less than we'd seen online!  We liked the original price, this price was just too good to pass up.  So after careful consideration and lots of chatting, we decided to get it.

While it wasn't an even trade, it was very very close to even.  Our monthly payments dropped significantly, saving us money each month (something we've been working hard at doing).  In the long run, it hardly cost us any more to upgrade to a van and since driving it, we can't put a price on the space.  The girls love it today, Anna loves it because now she can see out the window, and I love that we're not all on top of each other.  And we can take other people with us places.  And overall, we just love it!

I don't have a picture yet, but I'll try to get one.  It's white and looks an awful lot like our old one, just elongated!  And no, we don't only like white cars, for some reason, everytime we shop for a vehicle, the one we end up with is white!