I mentioned in my quick quip from the other night, how busy I have been with my new full time job and attempting to get a Masters degree to boot. While doing all of this can be difficult to manage, it does come with its own little set of perks. I’m not talking about grad school of course because as we all know, grad school’s only purpose is to defer my student loans long enough to the point where the federal government and the wonderfully nice and generous people at Wells Fargo (super nice and hopefully suffer from amnesia!) completely forget about my loans so I don’t have to pay them back.

So where was I? I shouldn’t distract myself with student loan repayment…it messes with my mind. My life, of course. Having a full time job does come with many wonderful perks. I get my own health insurance, an HSA for medical expenses, dental (not that kind of dental, perv!) vacation/sick/holiday time and best of all having a little bit of a disposable income.

Don’t get me wrong, my graduate program and my full time job work in tandem to secure the minuscule amount of money I can take home every pay period. If I wasn’t in school I’d have no disposable income, no house and no life (that’s because bums kill…they KILL). Getting back to the point, about a month ago I decided to do a very smart thing and invest my new disposable income into purchasing a new car.

When I said “new,” I mean “brand spanking, fresh out of the automobile womb new.” I was sick of buying cars that had more than 100k miles on them and would break down if I so much as looked at it wrong.  So I started my internet search. In case my faithful readers are unaware, there are about a gazillion car dealerships in the Omaha area with each offering their own incentives to get you in the door. Out of all of those dealerships, I found the car I wanted at just one of them. Of course, this was just day one of car shopping and in my experience, buying a car can be an extensive and time consuming project. Since the dealership that had my car was located in Bellevue, I decided to just go to my closest dealership and test drive a model nearly identical to the one I wanted…and I LOVED it.

Do you know how people say that when you touch something it makes you want to buy it? Well, my car buying experience goes on to prove that theory. After I got back from the test drive and denied the salesman’s numerous amounts of promises (come ons?) to buy the car, I went on a colossal internet car hunt. I searched near and far for anything matching the car I wanted but all I was left with was the one located in Bellevue. Knowing how the only car I wanted was located just a few miles away, I called the dealership up and made an appointment for the next day.

I swear that work day lasted a week because I was so excited to look at this car. As soon as the clock hit three, I was on my way. When I got there, the saleslady had it parked up next to the dealership and we immediately took it for a test drive. She asked me a few questions and I told her how it was only my second day car shopping and that I didn’t know how serious I was about buying a car. When we got back to her desk, she asked me what I thought and I said…I WANT IT!

She started the paperwork and I had the unfortunate task of trying to haggle her down on the price. The sticker said $21k but I knew that there was no way I’d be able to afford anything over $19k…so the dance began. I threw out an offer of $17k and she came back with a total price of $17,900. I got up from my chair and basically screamed “Sold!” After she told me to stop verbally assaulting her and after signing my name on about a ream of paper, I was on my way home with my new ride.

As hard as growing up may be, there really is a silver lining. I was able to purchase this beauty thanks to my full time job and am extremely thankful for it.

But of course, I could’ve bought a midget.

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