An update on the car is forthcoming, I do believe. Don't have available photos of the Cobalt's rearranged face, but it's rearranged face has been deemed a total loss by the insurance folks. Thus, the end of a era has come upon us. I've finally managed to total a vehicle. Granted, it took five cars with at least eleven incidents combined that either involved unintentional off-roading or some kind of contact with another vehicle. All in 13+ years.
Now that we have the relevant statistics out of the way...
So the fiancee and I are in the midst of car shopping, which is always fun. Of course, I'm still waiting for my settlement check from the insurance people, so I can't quite just go out and buy a car, yet. I can put down a deposit on a vehicle that I like, which will hopefully happen tonight. I say 'hopefully', because the vehicle we're looking for is the 2008 Subaru Forester with less than 35k miles, the factory warranty still intact, and a low enough price that, even after the down payment (the aforementioned check), won't break the bank on a monthly basis. What's nice about that last part is the first dealership we looked at claimed they could get us car we want within our budget range. That means I can tell that to other dealerships and not be lying in order to get a smaller monthly payment for similarly priced Foresters. I don't lie so convincingly. That's usually a good thing.
Let me finish up on that 'hopefully' emphasis. The first one we test-drove sold later that same day, before I felt comfortable putting a deposit down (still hadn't known what the check was going to be cut for, at that point). The next Forester, at a sister dealership across town, sold before the agent could have it delivered to the first location. I was starting to think we were on to something, finding a car that apparently was so good pre-owned that it couldn't stay on the lot short of boosting it's wheels.
At the moment, we're slated to visit another dealership (in yet another 'across town' direction) that has what we believe we're looking for. I'm praying that when I call them after work, it will still be there and will remain there until we get there. If that doesn't pan out, then we still have leads on several other Foresters, one of them an '08, several of them are '07 models, and yet another, an LL Bean edition, an '05 - but that one has over 90k miles, so it'd have to be vomiting rainbows and pooping gold to be a serious consideration for purchase.
So that's the car situation.
The house-hunting situation is a bit more complicated. Probably because you can't just drive a house to a more desirable location. There are also infinitely more characteristics to consider with a house compared to a car. The most prominent consideration being the loan duration, amount, and the yearly taxes. Add in the few requirements that we have and the limited budget (we are first-time buyers, after all), and you have a bunch of little factors that make it nigh impossible to quickly find a suitable location. Of course, after finding a suitable location, there's the seller and bank to deal with, so location isn't necessarily everything.
We've looked at 6 houses thus far. Planning on seeing another bunch this upcoming Saturday. We'll repeat that little phenomenon the following weekend depending on what we see. Personally, it won't surprise me if we need to adjust our 'required' characteristics in order to find something. We aren't exactly on a relaxing time frame, what with June running up to meet us.
Pretty much the only thing I can say for sure is that our house will have a roof, walls, windows, at least one door (hopefully more!), and we will have a lot more time for fun things when the search is over.
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