Zoom Zoom

So I bought a car.

Yay!

This was not something I was expecting to do for a while, and not something I was prepared for, but I'm pretty excited about and happy with what I got. It's a Mazda 2, something that's only been around in the states for about a year, the manual sport model (which sounds fancy, but it's the base model because that's what I can afford), and I'm still figuring out how to drive it. My friend helped me get it home the first night and gave me a much, much needed refresher course on how to drive stick (I stalled a good half dozen times before having a successful start) and I've been trying to get the hang of it ever since.

I broke it in this weekend with a trip to Las Vegas. (Hey, I spend ~$15 thousand on a new car I'm not going to spend another $200 on a plane ticket, OK?) There are some questions I have about driving stick, and about driving this particular car, but I think I'll get there quickly.

I'm pretty proud that I was able to do this, and do it 100% on my own. I got a loan from my credit union (which was a BITCH because of my employment status- never doing 1099 again), had a decent down payment saved up, great credit and did all my research in about 2 weeks. On the one hand, it really sucked that as soon as I'm in a position to buy things I want and save up some money my car breaks and I have to get myself into a load of debt, but I'm fortunate that I don't also still have my credit card debt, bad credit, or less than what my current work situation is. It's nice knowing I can do this.

Saying goodbye to my Hyundai Accent isn't going to be easy. I might have given that car a lot of shit in the past but for 140+ thousand miles in 9 years and very little maintenance requirements, even after what would be considered an accident, is pretty great. I did love my little car, but there was no way I was going to rebuilt the transmission. I'm sad it didn't make it to 10 years though, and I'll miss that car. But it's going to be very great to not have to worry about car repairs or whether or not my car will make it on a trip for a good long time.

So if you're looking for a fixer-upper car I've got an automatic 2002 Hyundai Accent that needs a new transmission, battery, tires, brakes and shocks with your name on it.