Our Other "New" Car & Why We Bought It

Only a few weeks into living in the Houston, Texas area, my husband was rear ended. I won't go into the details, but basically, it wasn't his fault, and were now stuck with a totaled 2000 Honda Civic. He was completely fine, no major injuries or even minor, so we're lucky for that! I can't even describe the amount of sadness my husband felt after his wreck; he LOVED that car. It had over 220k miles on it, and it was 14 years old. He had only had it for about 4 years or so, but it would have probably lasted us a while longer.

After two weeks of waiting and driving around a rental car, we finally received our check from the insurance ($4,000), which we then used as a down payment for the next one. We also used our tax refund ($2,000), so we had a total of $6,000 to put down on a car. As soon as we arrived home from the accident, he began looking for another car on Craigslist. I have definitely sold things on Craigslist before, but when it comes to buying a car, I get a little nervous and would rather have a warranty and guarantee of a dealership.

I know there's pros and cons to both sides—dealerships can offer more of a warranty; Craigslist offers better pricing. After much discussion (and I'm talking like two weeks of discussions...), we settled on going with a dealership. That was only half of the battle. Next, we figured out what kind of car he wanted.

He had been looking at some pricey Volkswagon GTIs, and I was nervous about taking on more debt. However, we've been slashing our debt like crazy with big payments (and lots of budgeting), so I wasn't so worried. My rationale: The way we pay down debt (upwards of $1,200+ a month), a car that cost an extra few grand would only equal a few more months of payments. We ended up settling on a 2010 VW GTI that is really nice with low miles for a little over $16k. With the $6k we put down, we only owe roughly $10k, which we plan on paying off in about two years or less, as money allows. Without further ado, here's all the pics.