That new car smell.....

Hooray! We arranged for Oren to get a ride to a friend's house after school yesterday and devoted ourselves to car shopping. Not having two cars was driving us crazy, with his work schedule constantly changing, and mine being so busy 90% of the week, we really need the extra car. So we went down to a dealership in town, Thrifty Car Sales. They sell used cars about 1-5 years old, and these are well taken care of, at a decent price. To make a several hour long and many clarifying questions story short, we purchased a car. A 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt LT, in Blue Flash Metallic... oooohhhhh...... Being a smart consumer, I knew what kind of payments we could swing, and found financing that would allow us those payments and a low interest rate. About 3.5 percent lower than our van was financed at. So we ended up basically refinancing the little bit left on our van, at the same interest rate we were getting on our car, and our payments are less than we were paying on our van, even condensed into one payment to make it simpler. While we ended up spending much more than we had planned on this car, it is a very good car, reliable, safe, fuel efficient, and was cheaper here than anywhere else we could have gotten it. This car won't give us any trouble for several years, just needing brakes and tires occasionally. To us, that piece of mind is worth the extra money right now. We will continue paying the amount we have been on our van, so we will be paying this loan off early, since we are used to this car payment and won't miss the money. It was funny, the salesman was trying to talk number and was giving us conservative estimates, until I whipped out my calculator and ran my own numbers.... After that he quit trying to fool us and gave me the info I asked for, not the runaround. It pays to do your research... When will men learn not to underestimate women? We aren't stupid.... What was funny was that after we had signed all the papers and were walking away to load children and go home, the guy started trying to talk me into trading in our van for an 07 model. Are you kidding me? I just bought a car from you, don't push your luck....