Patience is a virtue

On Tuesday, Aaron and I were pretty determined to get a second car.
Mostly because we have such different schedules, it would be very hard for us to just share my car; especially if he decides to get a job. After the not so great news we received about a lack of funds, we had to sit down and really figure some stuff out.

Once we got our P’s & Q’s straight, we headed out. We started out by going to the lemon lot [a place on base where soldiers try to sell their cars when they get stationed over seas], because they usually have really nice cars for pretty reasonable prices. Of course we found a few that we really liked, but we decided that at this point in time, they were out of our price range. One of the cars was a Mazda3 Hatchback. It wasn’t the car that Aaron originally wanted, but when we saw it, we both really liked it. But, like I said, it was out of our league for the time being.

We were heading to Enterprise to see Aaron’s sister when I remembered there was a Mazda dealership in town. We stopped by, just to have a look, and we found the one we wanted! An ’06 Silver Mazda3 Hatchback with black and red interior with only 32,000 miles on it. We took it for a test drive, and Aaron really did fall in love! He wanted a stick shift [which I have no clue how to drive], but this car is an automatic, with the ‘bumping shift’ which means it can switch between being an automatic or a manual. HOW COOL IS THAT? I basically thought this car was made for us.

Then it came down to the credit check and yadda, yadda. We passed with flying colors, and got the lowest interest rate available, but then it took us FOUR hours to negotiate. I’ll just tell you right now, I was highly irritable. I hate being places like that for so long, but it was worth it. To begin with they wanted $3,000 deposit & then $380 payment each month for 4 years. When we left, we had talked them down to paying a $1,000 deposit & $265 payment each month for 5 years. We saved a little over $3,000 on the car just by not taking the crap they were throwing at us, and almost walking away. We knew how much the car was worth, and they wanted a lot more for it, so we just sat there until they gave us a good deal. Needless to say, we left a very, very happy couple.

Wednesday, they wanted Aaron to come back to finish signing the paper work [since it was so late when we finally left], so he did. He got all the way to the dealership [45 mins away!] just to find out that since he was only 21 he HAD to have a cosigner, or we would have to give the car back. My first thought was, WHY couldn't they have told us that the night before? They knew he was only 21 because they asked him on several occassions for his birthday. They also knew that he was driving almost an hour to get there, so you'd think they would have saved him a little bit of trouble, but no. He called his dad, and asked if he would co-sign, and UNSURPRISINGLY he said no. I knew the answer before he even asked. I started to get really bummed out, because his mom has NO credit, and we knew that from past experience, so we were kind of freaking out. But my Nanny saved the day.

She agreed to co-sign, because she said that even if Aaron defaulted on payments, she would just finish paying it off and give it to me! HA! Notttttt that he will do that, but if it happened, at least we have a back up plan. Thursday we went BACK to Enterprise to finish signing all the paper work.

After days of going back and forth with the dealership, and stressing out about finding a co-signer, we are now the proud owners of this lovely little car: