Minivan Mom

So, I've become THAT mom.

You know, the one who swore up and down that they would never, ever, ever, in a million years drive a minivan.

I'm now the owner of a minivan…..

It's really not as bad as I make it sound.  I'm just still a little sad about giving up my Acadia.  I loved that car.  That car was such a beautiful car.  I felt like such a cool mom in that car.  Oh well.

Drew and I have been trying to come up with ways to cut our spending every month.  We seriously pay an ungodly amount every month for the Acadia.  We bought it brand new because we figured that with a vehicle that big, we wouldn't need to change cars, even when more kids came along.  We bought it with 0% financing, and haven't really been in a rush to pay it off when there are other things that we owe on that does carry interest, like student loans.  So, we've chugged along every month making the minimum payment, and watching the amount that we owe on grow smaller and smaller.

But, it's not growing smaller fast enough, and we want to cut what we spend every month.  So, we decided to start van shopping.  We knew that a payment on a van would be much smaller.  And also, really the only reason that I pushed hard to get a van, was for the side slide doors.  At this point, I am so over trying to get my kid in and out of the car.  She's getting bigger, and I'm really not unless you count the belly.  It's getting hard for me to lift her in and out and try to struggle with getting her in her car seat. What's worse though, is when you get someone who parks too close to the side of the car, and then I can't open the door all the way.  So then, I'm stuck trying to get my child in the car and in her car seat with a door that's only partially open.  And, I'm always worried about banging into someone else's car.  I knew that I wanted side slide doors, especially with another little one on the way.

Drew and I did a little preliminary research, and talked to Jess and Eric, who own a Chrysler Town & Country, and we decided to go check those out.  We went to a dealership here in town and looked at all the features.  After spending an afternoon there, we decided that we definitely liked it, and that was the model we wanted.

We came back home and started looking around the area for used ones that we like.  We found a 2012 in St. Charles at a dealership that we liked, and drove there today to look at it.  Once we arrived, we found out that the battery on it was dead and that they were trying to charge it up so we could drive it.  They told us that if we decided to buy it, that they would replace the battery for us for free.  However, after taking one look at the inside, we knew that it wasn't for us.  The leather on the seats was beat up and worn and kind of ugly.  For only being two years old, we weren't impressed.

Then, Drew decided that he wanted to look at new ones.  After a bunch of test driving, and feature comparing, we found a new one that we loved and went inside to start negotiating prices.  Negotiations took forever.  After we settled on a price for the new van, we informed them that we were going to be trading our Acadia in, and negotiations started on that.  Eventually, we all came to an agreement on prices, and we started all the paperwork.

We left out of there much later than we originally planned, but we were the proud owners of a new van!

So far, we really love it!  Annelise seems to really enjoy it too, because she hasn't thrown a single fit about getting into her car seat.  Fingers crossed that it stays that way.