Are you buying a new car??

Wise Bread has a post up about new car incentives. Anybody gonna bite?

I have some extremely un-frugal confessions to make to you, internets....

We bought a new car.

Well, ok, we traded in the 1999 Toyota Camry for a 2006 Toyota Sienna.

It's fancy. XLE and AWD. Leather seats and automatic doors and second row captain's chairs. I make everyone laugh when I exclaim over some clever little feature that is "like they designed it for kids" or something.... who, exactly, do I think they are marketing these minivans too? Non-families? But I do love the tinted windows and built-in pull-up window shades.

And this fugger has more storage than my kitchen. I'm not kidding.

And I dropped several hundred on some fancy-schmancy glass coating that promises me a crack-free windshield for 5 years.

Anyone out there remember the windshield on my old Toyota pickup? Yee-gads. The things we do in our youth.

Here's the funny part.... I never get to drive it. Nope. I'm still driving the Subaru. Hot Stuff has fallen in love with the van and drives it everywhere. I'm ok with that.

And still no car payments. (Yes, I'm bragging.)

Now, you might ask, short of selling a kidney or pimping out Hot Stuff on Tuesday nights, did we do that?? Helifino.

We got lucky.

I'm such a cheap-ass when we bought the Subaru (shortly after Tuff was born) they offered 5 years of financing and I decided to eat more mac-n-cheese and do it in two..... which put us, after the down payment, with payments around $500/month. (2.9% financing) We finished those up in October. (I had to take Hot with me to be the "heavy" when I told the insurance agent we wanted to drop it to liability-only.... still not sure about that decision.) And, knowing Hot was not going to be put off much longer, I had been skrimping for a down payment for a new jumbo-vehicle. It wasn't much of a decision.... Hot wanted a minivan with all-wheel drive. That leaves us with a long list.... a Sienna. I wanted a 2006 because that's when they upgraded the safety features. He wanted a 2007 but I vetoed that on grounds of budget limits. We found a good deal on this one and it was owned by people with no kids so the back seats are flawless. So we gutted it up and went for it. The financing was pretty sucky.... 5.5%... so we skipped that part. I'm still pretty pleased with the deal we got... I think it was fair.... even if I'm not completely in love with the idea of driving a loser-cruiser. I'll get over it.

Huh. That story wasn't as exciting as I had hoped. I got to play guitar hero at the dealership and enter a drawing to win a tv or a laptop or an ipod.... I'm still waiting for them to call and tell me what I won.....