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Our Next Big Purchase

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Monday, January 30, 2012

Our Next Big Purchase

Currently we are saving for our next big purchase.  This is a bit of a new concept for us as we've never really saved for anything big before.  We've always just financed and paid it off after obtaining whatever it is we 'needed' at the moment.  It's actually very exciting!  We are planning to buy a new vehicle and pay for it in cash!


We bought our first car when we were 18 (I think..).  It was a little Toyota Tercel and a great car.  I think it cost $3500 and we got a car loan for it.  The bank wouldn't loan us that little so we had to borrow $5000. That ended up being a good thing as our insurance turned out to be $500 a month for the first 6 months and it was very helpful to have the extra cash from the bank to help pay the huge expense.  Neither of us had ever been insured before so the insurance companies weren't eager to have us as customers.

Our Tercel served us well and we took our time paying the loan off.  It was starting to show its age though and once it was paid off we started to look at other used cars.  We couldn't really decide what we wanted and kicked a lot of tires until one day my husband was rear ended on his way to work.  This ended up being a blessing in disguise as we had been contemplating trading our car in for $500 and the insurance company gave us $1300 for it.

We took that money and put it down on a used Mazda Protege5.  This time we got an even bigger car loan.  We still drive the Protege5 and it is a good car.  It has its issues but they are all things that my husband knows how to fix.  We were happy to pay the car off when we got our ManulifeOne account so we've just concentrated on driving it for as long as we could since then.

We have decided that the time has come however, to replace our beloved rust bucket.  We have come to the realization that we really need a bigger vehicle- and certainly something more reliable- as much as we hate to admit it.  I prefer little cars and hate the thought of having to drive something bigger but my back yells at me every time I try to get my hefty little guy in and out of the backseat.  Our car is also so compact that his carseat barely fits and I have to have my seat pulled as far up as it will go. The car is so unreliable that we don't leave home without a trunk full of tools. This is a problem when you have a plethora of baby gear needing to arrive at your destination and no free trunkspace to transport it!

We've been ogling the Mazda5 for awhile now and we've decided that this is the year that she'll be ours (pre-loved of course).  Sexy, isn't she?

Since we're bringing in less money now that I'm on maternity leave, we don't have any extra room in our budget to save for this.  This hasn't stopped us from saving up $3000 though.  Every penny that's come in from sources other than my EI payment or hubbies' paycheque has gone to our new car- and I've been working by butt off to make as much as I can!  I'll be sharing how we've been able to find the extra money to put towards this next purchase over the next little while and hopefully I'll be sharing the details of the actual purchase soon enough!!!!

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