Vehicles

We've had the same family vehicle for 7 years now. We finally got it completely paid off just a few months ago. It's been fine for us for the most part up until now, go figure. We finally own it and now it's more trouble than it's worth. Not to mention all said and done over the course of 7 years we've poured out more than $30,000.00 for it. That could have been a fair down-payment on a home! UGH! Needless to say, I don't EVER want to finance a vehicle again!

Now we've spent about as much as our monthly payments were on parts fixing things that are wrong with it these past couple months. In the meantime, we had the water-pump go out on it, so we had to take back our A/C compressor to be able to afford to get that fixed. Which means after all this time, we still have no air conditioning! Hubby's job requires him to drive all over town in this 100 degrees plus weather! It's awful! NOW the alternator is starting to fail us, which is a HUGE problem! Not because it's expensive, it's not too bad, it's just the timing is icky! We owe a few close family members some money and they need to be paid back right away, we've got to get that fixed or hubby won't be able to do his job, and he still needs A/C! To top it all off, this vehicle doesn't have enough seats to accommodate our family size once the baby arrives. With the car seat laws now, we can't all fit in the same vehicle! I need a van. I'm thinking I should just get a big van, one that seats more than 7 passengers. With only 7 seats, we'll be out of space again in no time. I say we go for a 15 passenger van! Then I don't have to worry about upgrading because of space, there'll be plenty! Now for hubby, he needs something small with good gas mileage to get him around town in a jiffy and at reasonable expense! Now we have to figure out how to pay family back, fix what we have before we have no way to make more money, save for these two vehicles we need, and find them used from a private owner and not get bamboozled in the process. All I can do is pray for this.