OK....I have to share something incredibly cute about Matt. Quite often, I fondly/affectionately refer to him as my 'overgrown little boy'. Here's a classic example of why......
You will notice the title of this post and the picture above. No, that is not OUR Chevy Avalanche.....but it's similar to the one that we just bought yesterday. I will post pictures of ours when I get them taken in the next few days. Ours is very similar in color to the one above, and ours has a few more 'accessories' on it that this one does.
To begin, I don't want anyone to think that we frivolously went out and bought a brand new truck, spending lots of money, right after Matt getting a good raise, etc, at work. That's not the case. We found our Avalanche at Carmax in South Salt Lake and it's used. We actually got it for about the same price that we bought our Kia Spectra for (brand new) about 5 or 6 years ago. If anyone knows what Kias are priced at..........you know that most 'rich' people with lots of money don't drive one! LOL The appeal to buying 2 Kias over the last 5 or 6 years was the warranty and how much less expensive they are compared to so many other vehicles.
Anyway, ever since I met Matt he has always been a 'truck' man......but has never actually owned one. He just 'drools' over all the other ones on the road and dreams about the day when he could one day have one of his own. :) He's been researching, test driving, and dreaming for years now, but we've just kept holding off until we felt like we were really in a position where we could really afford one comfortably without getting ourselves in trouble.
A couple of years ago, Matt and I were able to pay off both of our Kias and it's been really great not having a car payment.....which was also a large part of my hesitation in buying another car. Lately, though, we seemed to have been having some problems that kept popping up on both cars........things that needed to be fixed and we were beginning to worry about how much money we were going to have to put into them to keep them running like they should. As most people know.....Kias just really aren't worth much. They've both been good cars, so we really didn't want to have to spend lots of money to keep them running......probably more money than either of them was really worth. Suddenly, we found ourselves with both cars needing to be registered and it was going to take a few hundred dollars to get them both inspection/emissions ready. Yikes!
In the past few years, Matt and I have test driven quite a few trucks and have done our research regarding what would work best for our family should we someday buy one. We had come to the conclusion that we both really liked the Avalanche for a number of reasons, his reasons and my reasons. A couple of weeks ago, Matt was again browsing the internet and dreaming about owning a truck......when he found ours on the Carmax website and fell in love with it. (Not too shocking.) He went over to Carmax and took a look at it, thus falling in love deeper with it, but he wouldn't allow himself to test drive it because he was afraid it would push him over the edge. LOL He kind of mentioned it to me offhandedly one night after work, but I didn't really pay too much attention to it. Then over the next few weeks, things started happening with his job situation........which I've blogged about in earlier posts.
We found ourselves coming to the conclusion that both of our Kias just weren't worth what it was going to cost us in upkeep........and I hate not having a car that I can't rely on. I like having the sense of security and peace of mind to know that I can drive my car and get where I need to be safely. Plus, I don't drive anywhere anymore. I'm usually always at home during the day working and when I go anywhere at night it's usually with Matt. So my car, quite literally, sits in the garage ALL THE TIME! Granted, we didn't have a car payment, but we were still paying insurance on a car that rarely left the garage.....and that bugged me. After calling our insurance and checking on some ways that we might be able to cut down on the payment on that car, we decided to sell it to Carmax and just get rid of it. These days, Matt and I really only need 1 car. Like I said, I never drive anywhere anymore.....and if I need to, Matt and I will plan for it and I'll drive him to work and pick him up after so I can have the truck that day.
As a result, we traded both of the Kias to Carmax to help cut the cost down even more on the Avalanche and were able to get a really great, affordable payment. We figure that the car payment will balance out with saving so much money on our car insurance for just one car.........and because of the changes that have taken place with Matt's job situation we are saving quite a bit more money in different areas there as well.
Usually, in big money decisions like this I'm very hesitant and I have to be completely sure before I do it. Matt and I feel really good about our decision........and, of course, Matt's tickled pink to have a truck finally!
So...........back to what I said in the beginning about what I wanted to share about my cute husband.
Poor Matt didn't sleep at all last night because he was so excited about the new truck! He kept going to the window to check on it all night, making sure it was still there, and he kept pinching himself to make sure it was real and not just a dream! LOL At the moment, it doesn't fit in our garage until we can get some things rearranged a bit. Matt's got sort of a "workbench" in the garage that needs to be moved and rearranged so that the truck will fit, since it's quite a bit bigger and longer than both of our cars were! I feel bad that Matt didn't get any sleep last night.........but I'm glad he's so excited and happy to have the Avalanche! Matt is one of the hardest working people I know, and I'm happy that all of his hard work is paying off. I feel so blessed to have him in my life everyday!
He certainly makes me smile!
