First came Lolla then Zella and now let me introduce you to Carmella!

I never thought we would come to the point of owning a new car until we were in our 30s. We didn’t have much of a choice anyways when Zella (2002 Hyundai Elantra) gave up on me last week. Tyler had to borrow my mom’s car and come to my rescue!

Apparently the transmission was messed up and would not let me go faster than 40 mph while it’s at 4 rpm. Tyler managed to get it to go faster while in 3rd gear and so I followed him to drop it off at the car place where we usually get it fixed. The next day we found out it was going to cost a lot of money to fix it. I was financially exhausted of putting more money into Zella so I decided it was time to get rid of her.

Saturday we decided to go car shopping. Unfortunately Tyler had to work so he couldn’t come with me. My parents took me to a few places starting with Ford which we didn’t even stay long enough to test drive since I don’t really care for Ford. Next stop was Dodge/Jeep. I saw the Jeep Patroit and I didn’t really like how the windows were small and it wasn’t worth the price it was at. Looking around again, I saw a Dodge Journey and we took it out for a test drive. Really smooth ride!! We were hesitant though since our family doesn’t have good experience with Dodge & the reviews online were not good at all. We got an offer on it then left and went over to Kia.

The Kia Soul is so cute but too small and not what I want for a long time. Of course I wanted the Kia Sportage so we got an offer on it and it was ridiculously high and not what I had hoped for. The number I was hoping for was way too low that they would have been offended. Luckily for us we had an awesome salesman, Paul, helping us. He was funny & talked with us while waiting for them to do the credit check, get an offer, etc. After going back and forth…we showed them the offer we had from Dodge and at that point all eyes were on me when they had made another offer. I told them I needed more time and went outside to talk with mom for a while. After mom talked some sense into me & gave me some advice… we came back in. Paul asked me what my magic number was so I told him and he came back with an offer of $11 over my magic number. I couldn’t believe it and took the offer!

I texted Tyler and said, “We just bought a car!!” I wanted to see what his reaction was. I think he knew what kind of car we got since he knew I wanted a Kia Sportage anyways.

His replied, “Sunroof? Color?” Supposedly he was too busy at work and only cared about if it had a sunroof & the color of it.

“No sunroof and it’s volcanic red”, I replied being short with him as I was distracted at the dealership.

“Does your dad like it? He hates red. & tinted windows?”… now he was asking more questions and obviously cares about what my dad likes?! I read my text out loud to my parents & we all had a good laugh. Seriously who cares if my dad hates red? He’s not married to him & it’s not his car. It’s ours!

They only had 3 cars left before bringing in the 2011 models. Two of them were blue and the other one was red and the interior is beige. I’ve always loved dark interior but the beige color is starting to grow on me now. It just makes me want to drive barefoot so I don’t get the inside dirty at all. It’s like getting new shoes and not wanting them to get dirty at all.

The offer included the trade of my old car. It’s a huge relief getting rid of Zella since I don’t need any more financial emergencies with her.

Last year we purchased a house last year in July and now it’s July and we just purchased a car. What’s next year? Another car, pool, or babies? Or all of the above! Now having experienced purchasing a house and car… I definitely have to say buying a car was more fun only because I got it the same day I purchased it! That’s huge for me since I always want things the minute I lay my eyes on them. I’m guilty of that! Don’t tell me I’m the only one…

Now isn’t Carmella pretty?!