OUR FIRST CAR!
This blog is a reaaallly long time coming! I have just been so busy with life that I haven't done much blogging at all lately! :(
WE GOT A CAR! We bought our very first car this past may. We really had no idea what all went into buying a car and we hit a few road blocks along the way. First we had to save up the money. Then we needed to find insurance. Finally we needed to pick and buying a car
Saving for a car
We saved for a about a year for our car. This part is very hard! Charlie and I mostly support our selves and each other financially. Some people don't know how lucky they are to be given a car as a gift or have help paying for it. It took us a little longer then we wanted to save up because we do have bills and other needs. We managed to save up a little over 3,000 for our car by may. That is usually about how much a down payment will cost so inc we saved up enough for a down payment we started looking into car insurance.
Finding out first car
We where very smart when looking for our first car. We did A LOT of research! We spend hours on line searching different websites and looking up all the car facts. We knew right away we wanted a use car with not a lot of miles on it. The less car accidents and issues the better. At first we wanted a kia soul. However after doing some research, watching some youtube videos, and reading some reviews we found out that the kia felt very boxy to drive. So we decided to look into other car types. We finally found our car on carmax.com! A white 2003 oldmobile alero for 7,000. The price was perfect for us. The car facts looked great. One other owner and it had no past accidents. It only had 81,000 miles on it. We totally fell in love! Now our next step was to find some car insurance that we could afford.CAR INSURANCE
Car insurance was a huge pain for us. Most people are ages are on their parents insurance or have been driving long enough to get a cheap rate. Charlie is a new driver and I still just have my learners so insurance was ridiculously high for us. We went to a bunch of places such as Allstate, state farm, etc and the rate for full cover was way more then we could manage right now. At first we only wanted to put a down payment on the car but to do that we would need full coverage. We decided we would have to pay a car in full to be able to afford insurance. It was very depressing and super bummed us out. It took us so long to get to the point where we had enough money saved up to put a down payment of a car. We where so excited and ready to start the car buying process. Then we hit this huge rode block it was heart breaking! We needed a car and we needed a plan. We talked through many plans with our families. Hope was not lost! We finally came up with a plan that worked for us! We would pay for our down and get help from Charlie's dad and step mom. We of course would pay them back as soon as we had the money! This was such a blessing! We are so thankful to them for helping us out! We really could have done it with out them! Once we had a plan we decided to get liability car insurance from geico.Buying our car!!
Now that we had the car insurance taken care of there was just one thing left to do!!! Finally going to buy our first car. We went to carmax in white marsh Maryland. It is about 20 min from where we live. It was really surprisingly a easy and smooth process. Charlie was super nervous about the test drive so he let his dad drive the car but he rode along for the test drive. They where out for a test drive roughly 30 min. The car ran great. The next step was payment and a whole lot a paper work. The whole process took about 2 hours. After everything was signed and paid for they handed us the keys! An amazing feeling! We finally had our own car that we worked really hard for. We had freedom and a whole lot of adventures ahead of us. Charlie's dad had to show us how all the buttons and such worked. Then we where off with a car of our very own!
Our advice to first car buyers!
Our advice for you is to first save save SAVE! If you are looking to buy a car and you aren't getting any help from your parents the first step is to at least save up for a down payment on a car. That means at least saving $3,000. Save as much as you can anywhere you can save it. Then once you have enough in the bank for a down payment time to crack open Google and do as much research as you can! Find out what car works for you then get as much background on that car as you can. Look up the car facts, read reviews, and watch reviews. After you have done you research find a car insurance plan that works for you. If something doesn't work out the first try don't get discouraged. Just come up with another plan. Remember a car is a lot of responsibility! Be smart behind the wheel! A text message can wait and never get behind the wheel if you have been drinking. Never drive faster then your angel can fly. Thanks for reading! I hope you found this helpful! Good luck!
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