New car.

We bought a new car last night, a Prius. I'm sure I'll be happy with the car, but I'm nevertheless pained by the amount of debt incurred, and worried about having made the right choice. The Prius ended up a good five grand more than the primary other option at which we were looking, the Nissan Altima. The Prius will save us a lot on mileage, and with Stephanie's job that actually figures to be a significant consideration; she drives a good 1000 miles per month, and the Prius gets more than twice the MPG (51 to the Altima's 23 in city driving.) But I'm just never one to enjoy spending money. I could have won the Powerball and I'd still be hemming and hawing over this kind of purchase especially, but also the PS3 that I've been trying to decide on for over two years now. I've decided that I want that over the XBOX, but that doesn't mean that I'm ready to spend the $300 on it. I'm just adverse to spending money when I know I will have some degree of buyer's remorse. For the PS3, it's always goign to nag whether it was worth the price. For the car, I'll always doubt if we should have gone with the Altime (or the Sonata.) I hope that means that I'll be good with money over time. But I kind of doubt it.

This car is for Stephanie. She'll be driving it the most (which was true of the Subaru too, I guess, but perhaps more so for this one; we'll see.) A big part of the thought process was about her work situation, from mileage to dealer location, and I am feeling a bit jealous that she'll be driving the new car so much more. It will be nice to have the Subaru around for backup when it gets too cold to walk Nathaniel up to ECFE comfortably, and to get around even when I'm just watching him, to the grocery store/errands whatever (especially as my parents gave us their car seat for it, so that we can have one in both cars). I don't anticipate using it much, probably similarly to the Corolla when we borrowed that a couple years back. It will be nice to have that option. But I'm still jealous of the new car, and then I started to think about getting myself a new car (in three to five years) and trying to think what kind of car I'd want. Part of me wants to say a flashy/fun kind of small car, but I know in reality I'm just too practical to enjoy spending money on that kind of thing (tens of thousands of dollars in rapidly depreciating sheet metal--or more likely fiberglass) so I'd probably end up getting another Prius, or perhaps a different sedan. An Insight or something. By that time, perhaps there will be more hybrids available. But more likely than any of that, would be that we get a van. By that time we'll be thinking about more kids and need the space for car seats and such, and so it's unlikely that I'll be able to get a new car for me until the kids are in the process of going to college. Or at least the latter stages of high school. Perhaps it will be different if my work situation changes and it's just not practical for me to ride the bus in to downtown Minneapolis (or wherever I end up.) But for now, I see myself being able to get a new car for me to drive in about twenty years.