The Car

So we are moving, and getting ready for a baby. Did I say that Nicole is due on June 2nd? She has had a great pregnancy, and we are anxiously awaiting the next step. The welcome to the madness. The end of the quiet! Things are quiet right now! Unlike the past 5 years of our relationship, these days I have cleared my schedule, and I come home every evening to sit with Nicole and wait. We watch whatever is on the channel that we ended up on, and make dinner, read, and plan! The planning is what we are both enjoying right now. I had the initial idea that we wold leave our jobs, move to Phoenix without an apartment or a car, and see what happens. Nicole quickly made me realize that since we do have a baby coming, we might want to plan ahead. She just turned to me and said "I think I am going to have a temper tantrum I am so uncomfortable". Pregnancy rocks.

So, again - we need a car, and apartment, and student loans. I have a 2001 Volkswagen Jetta, and we originally planned to drive, with the baby, across the country following Nicole's brother's wedding in Niagara Falls on August 5th. When I brought the car into my mechanic for inspection, I realized that if the car would make it across the country, it probably wouldn't last much after that. I think the car would be happy to retire to Phoenix, spend its final days rolling around the streets and sweating, but I don't think it is willing to, at this point, move to Phoenix and really be a willing participant in our daily lives. It's doctor bills are outrageous, and has 165,000 miles on it now. I have a feeling that it could find a good home here in New York with someone who needs it occasionally to drive out of the city, trek to the beach in Jersey, and maybe help a friend move some Ikea furniture from the Bronx. I need to list the car soon - time is moving quickly, although slowly. At least I know it will move very quickly once this baby is born.

We found that there are good lease deals on this car called the Kia Soul. Kind of looks like a breadbox on wheels, but that is ok. It is big, will be safe, and will be completely covered by a warranty. I have never signed a lease deal before. Turns out it takes some bargaining. It seems that they will offer us a pretty good deal, but we need to keep driving it down. At the moment they have come down from $208 a month with $2000 down to $171 a month with no money down. They could go even lower for the manual transmission, but we decided that we would rather have the lowest level automatic transmission. In case you are wondering, this is all not like me. I look for the cheapest, and the most rugged option available. I am a hippy underneath, and it bothers me that I always have the desire to undercut my desires. Part of this blog is therapeutic for me - I need to write about what is happening so that I can make sure it is real. But it is real. Also real is that my credit score is really good - 802. A few years of paying off my cards every month has really paid off. And I have a feeling the collective bad credit in the country could help me/us if I can keep this up. Big if.