I Roll Hard Through the Streets and the Culdesacs...

2 years ago for Valentine's Day, Jay and I spent the weekend in Galena.  It was a weekend of milestones for us.  First, Jay got called to interview for his job in Cedar Falls, which later led to some major life changes for us.  Second, and obviously more importantly, Jay's car hit 100,000 miles! So we stopped in the middle of the road and celebrated.

We par-tay for weird reasons!

His car has been a really nice car for us.  But it's starting to get a bit beaten up, and now has been with us for roughly 123,083 miles or so.

The mirror cover has been gone for over 2 years now, and not replaced.

Obviously someone ran down the side of the road with a white paintbrush.

More dents and boo-boos

So this Valentine's weekend, we made a goal.  By the time Jay is done with grad school, we want to have saved enough money for him to get a "new" car. (I use the word "new" loosely, because for us in carworld "new" means a very nice, reliable, like-new-but-used car. Not a brand-spankin' new one! We're not rich, yo.)

We would both really like for him to have a car that handles better in the snowy weather and that has a little more room.  He's got his eye on some vehicles like this:

Suh-weet.

I like this one. : )

Just kidding! :)

So...if his car already has lots of miles on it, and is already kinda beat up, then why not buy a new car now? We don't believe that to be terribly practical.  I'll give you two (and only two) reasons why. 

1. His Altima gets great gas mileage. Switching to a gas hog when he'll be traveling back and forth to Cedar Rapids for the next 2-3 years just doesn't make sense.

2. We don't want a car payment.  Call us cheapos, but we'd rather spend a few years to save the money to buy a vehicle outright than to have to make a payment each month.

Okay, you want one more reason? Fine.

3.  Jay secretly loves minivans. I really think he is going to hold on to that Altima until it is socially acceptable for him to drive a van.  If he bought a new vehicle now, he'd have to buy an SUV, because it would be weird for him to own a van. That's just my opinion.  I mean, I'm only his wife - what do I know?

My money's on Jay's "graduation gift" looking more like this:

Hells yeah!!! it's a Swagger Wagon!

In the meantime, we're going to go get old Alty all spiffed up and looking nice. And I told Jay to splurge and get one of those ipod wires installed to help with all of the roadtrips in his future. Hopefully that will help to tide him over until the Swagger Wagon! : )