Car Shopping

Let me just say that while I am really really wanting to find a minivan we can afford that meets certain qualifications (mileage + cost), I am still having a hard time picturing myself driving one.  I love the thought of being IN one, but I feel like an impostor every time I imagine someone seeing me drive one.  But I guess that is just as crazy as thinking of myself as a work-at-home mother of two.  I'm what?!

So, everyone keeps telling me to take my time and shop around and I totally understand and appreciate that logic.  There are good deals out there if you can find them and haggle them.  No need to rush in and buy the first thing you see that you like, right?  Compare, compare, compare.  This is a lot of money we're talking about here (the first time in my life I've dealt with amounts this high and not been talking about debt, actually).  I shouldn't throw it at the first car I find that I like.  And with my luck, the day after finally forking over the cash on a car, someone else will tell me they found the same car with lower mileage for a couple thousand less than I paid.  I'm just sure it will happen.

But my thinking is, if I take all the time in the world and compare till my eyes bleed, I will never be able to make up my mind!  And no matter what I end up buying, there will ALWAYS be a better deal somewhere else down the line.  And, in the meantime, I will scare myself out of ever parting with the money for fear I'm not making the most of it- never make a decision, and the car I really liked the first day I went out shopping is driving off the lot with someone else happily inside, but I was too embarrassed to buy it myself because I was supposed to shop around longer.

So, maybe more experienced car shoppers will look down on me for really wanting to buy the first car that I found that I really liked.  And maybe if I do end up buying, I might find that I could have saved $500 and 10,000 miles on another car if I waited another week.

But who cares?  If my mechanic checks it out and gives it a clean bill of health, it is a good car.  And certainly a better car than what we had.  And, who's to say that a bit less mileage is really that big of a deal??  I know nothing about cars, but I'm pretty sure there's more to them than how many miles they've driven.

I just know that I am easily overwhelmed by numbers and technical specifications.  I will shut down if I drag this out too long.

And I know from my years of experience as a camera salesperson, the people who come walking in with stacks and stacks of consumer reports are the people who can never make up their mind.  Too much information can be a bad thing.  Because, at some point, it all becomes a wash.  They are all cameras.

Cameras are different from cars, I know.

But they are all used cars.
And I know there will be something wrong with whatever we decide on (poor mileage, spent too much, bad year, sluggish acceleration, wrong color, someone else found a better deal than this- whatever).  We can't please everyone.  But at least Timm and I can get a car that we like, that we can comfortably transport our family in.

If it is this stressful to purchase a used car, I am never buying a house.