The Newest Edition to the Family

Here is our latest purchase! We bought a 2005 Nissan Altima S 2.5. Our friends Brad and Amanda new a guy who helped them buy their latest car through the Manheim Auto Auction. Basically the Auto Auction sells cars to dealers for wholesale price. They are usually cars that have come from Dealerships that have been leased. The Dealerships have too much inventory and send them here to get sold. Our friend Pat was looking at 06' Altima's for us last week at the Auction and was biding on five different ones for us but they all went for higher than we wanted to pay. Pat called the next day to tell us about this car that was online. It only had 19,800 miles on it. We gave Pat the go ahead to buy it and by Monday we found out that were the new owners of the car! This was such a smart route to go! There were some fees included in the cost such as Pat's fee, a fee to the Dealership he is licensed through, a fee to the Auction, transferring the title and plates etc., etc. We were more than willing to pay the fees knowing how much we would've spent at a Dealership or to a private owner. The Auction does very meticulous checks on the cars and grades them on a scale. Our car got great reports and was never in any accidents and it looks spankin' new! We are so excited! I finally drove it last night and this car has GUTS!! Plenty of Pep and Zip! We didn't get a van at this time but it's fine b/c this car will become Zac's car when we have the 3rd child and we are definitely taking this route the next time we get a car. Thanks to everyone who sent emails with suggestions on cars and brands. All of the information was very helpful!

P.S. I know we were talking Toyota but what we realized is that those cars don't depreciate and we will use the Auction to buy a year old van, or one still under warranty when the time comes. We will save money by not taking a hit buying new and having it lose money the second we drive off the lot. Some of you wondered if a Sedan would be less spacious than our Jeep, um no. It has way more room than our Jeep. The Jeep is very boxy and the back seat is so tiny. There is no leg room or room period for anyone to sit comfortably back there. We can sit the kids back there comfortably and Haley has plenty of room for her little legs behind Zac's seat. Oh and the trunk is ridiculously deep! It is a bottomless pit! We kissed the Jeep bye bye on Saturday so we are back to a one car household again. We manage:)