You have to understand that we are thrifty folks. We don\u2019t make big purchases lightly. As a friend once said to me, \u201cYou and your husband overthink everything, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, you could put it that way, but I think that thinking through major (and minor) purchases is a good thing. Our household monetary policy comes down to two fundamental ideas:<\/p>\n

1. Money in the bank = freedom.<\/p>\n

2. We are responsible for the consequences of our actions.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s put it this way: consumption = less money + more waste, unless you are really thoughtful about the way you consume. I don\u2019t know about you, but I do a major household cleanup at least twice a year, and until I really cut back on my spending, I would take away bags and bags of stuff no one used anymore each time. A few years back I began to make a concerted effort to change my ways. You know you\u2019re consuming wisely when spring cleaning hits and you have nothing to give away or stock a yard sale with.<\/p>\n

All of this to say that deciding to buy a second car wasn\u2019t easy for me. We\u2019ve been a one car family for nine years. It\u2019s worked for us because my husband and I both work from home, but there have been times when it\u2019s been frustrating. Last year our \u201999 Dodge Caravan got creaky and we traded it in for an \u201901 Ford F-150. Not my idea of a family car (although we all fit in it), but very handy for all the hauling and building we\u2019ve done on the acre this past year.<\/p>\n

The F-150 gets cruddy gas mileage, though, and I don\u2019t entirely trust it. Our nearest town is 45 minutes away through a lot of empty territory. I\u2019m not comfortable piling my daughter\u2019s friends in it and going for a day trip anywhere. Plus filling the tank for such an outing would put me in the poorhouse.<\/p>\n

Enter the Honda Fit. It\u2019s a 2007 and it\u2019s seen some wear and tear, but I\u2019m hoping it will get me through the next 6 \u2013 8 years, until all the kids move out. It\u2019s a great car for the last two to learn to drive on, and wonderful to run errands around town in. It should sip gas. I have a feeling the Ford is going to sit in our driveway an awful lot now.<\/p>\n

Now to name her\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You have to understand that we are thrifty folks. We don\u2019t make big purchases lightly. As a friend once said to me, \u201cYou and your husband overthink everything, don\u2019t you?\u201d Well, you could put it that way, but I think…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"post_series":[],"class_list":["post-640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.lalaprojects.com\/coraseton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}