New Car!

The end of my car search has come! Alas, I have a trusty auto to call my own. The Lord is good, and as He has declared in His word, "If we are faithless, He will remain faithful; He cannot deny Himself" (2 Timothy 2:13). He has truly been faithful, and blessed me exceedingly abundantly beyond what I could have asked or imagined. (Although I must say, it's a mixed bag, because although I've been blessed, I've also received a trial that will keep me dependant upon Him, in that my finances are going to be tight. Doable, but tight. But this is good too, from a heavenly perspective that is! So in that I will take joy!)
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So what is it, you ask? Well, from this first picture, you can't quite tell. Is it a Ford Focus? It doesn't quite look like it. And what's that little yellow sticker at the bottom right hand corner? Is that-- an HOV lane sticker? But I thought only Hybrid cars could have those?
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In this you are correct! Only Hybrids can have HOV lane passes. And that's why I have one-- 'cause I got a Hybrid! How sweet is that? Hello good gas mileage!

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It's an interesting story how I came upon this car. A quite long story. So maybe I'll give you the abridged version. I'd been applying for auto loans to no avail; apparently there's a particular sort of marking on my credit report that they don't like, despite my score being good. I was looking at a Toyota Corolla (2001 for $6995), and the dealer told me all he could offer me is a 20%+ loan and $2,000 down. With what resources I had available to me, and pressing them at that, I could maybe only scrape together $1000 max.

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So I'd been talking to my dad throughout this whole process, and he said he would talk to my step-mom about my situation. So they called me back, and said they were not willing to cosign for me, but that they would be willing to each give me $1000 ($2000 total). Wow! That was amazing! I never expected that. How truly awesome of them to help me like that.

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I soon found out though that this (not so hot) loan I could get for the Corolla had a 36 mo. term-- which would make the payments too expensive to fit into my budget. I'd need a minimum of 48 mo. I was getting very frustrated and quite faithless with hitting so many dead-ends.

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My step-mom found an '06 Corolla for $9000 up in L.A. with only 26k miles on it-- sounds too good to be true-- but they wanted me to come up and look at it. I was convinced it would end the same way-- not approved for a loan, payments too much, horrible rates, etc. and so I didn't want to go. My dad said to me, "Where's your faith? You're always talking about faith, have some! Get on up here." So I hopped on the train to Orange and they picked me up and we drove to L.A. to look at this car.

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Okay, so this is supposed to be ABRIDGED, so long story short, they dealership was way lame, and they sold that car on the 10th and told us it was still on the lot, then tried to blame it one someone else and sell us something else. So we left. We drove down the road, which had several dealerships, and looked at a few. No luck. Nothing under $13k most places.

THEN... Right when we were about to give up, we came across a Toyota Prius Hybrid. $11,995. The cheapest thing they had on the lot, and the cheapest Hybrid I've ever seen, but still too expensive. Of course the dealer wanted me to test drive it when he saw us looking at it. I was initially reluctant, because I didn't want to get suckered. But I ended up test driving it. Hybrids are weird I tell you!

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So back at "the table" with the 4 square sheet, we wheeled and dealed. We wanted the car for no more than $10k. He said he couldn't lower the price as it'd already been marked down from $13,995 because it wasn't selling, and they wanted it to sell easier. I said, "It'd sell for sure if you made it $9,000" haha. He apparently liked this logic. We basically negotiated on monthly payments. First it was no more than 48 mo. was available since it's a 2001. Then after a few trips back to the office, he came back with, "ok, so $2,000 down and $199/mo. and it's a deal?" Yes, I told him. And so it was. And the amazing thing is-- my rate is only 7.25! No ghastly 20% loan! And I got a 60 mo. term with no prepayment penalties (it's a long time but it's what I needed to make almost any reasonably nice car affordable.) Amazing.

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So thank you to my parents. This is my birthday present for the next 300 years! And Christmas, and everything else! It's a pretty sweet little car, but I tell you-- going from a base model 1993 Corolla to a loaded 2001 electric whirlwind is weird. It took me a day to figure out the radio. Crazy touch screen controls!

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So praise the Lord! He is faithful! Now if I could just trust that He will provide for my other needs as well... That's the depending on Him part! Lord, help my unbelief!