In with the new, out with the old

So we have been driving a 1994 Nissan Altima for 8 or 9 years now.  My husband has been taking it work every day, but he commutes about 40 miles each direction.  Our car is structurally sound.  In fact it looks great.  For most of April it was in the shop as we were trying to figure out what was wrong with it.  Finally we discovered that the transmission module overheats.  This is the computer component inside the car.  When it overheats, it makes the transmission get stuck in gear.  A solution was found.....All my husband had to do was take the part with him into work, then put it in the freezer.....yep, then it works.  He tried to call the dealership to acquire a new part.  They don't even make this part anymore.  He was then informed that he should just go to a junk yard to get the part.  He did, and ended up getting 2, not sure which one would work.  And good thing because one of the "new" ones also failed.  Because my husband commutes so far each day we decided that have a car flaking out wasn't our best option.  We've also spent a lot of money on this little car in the last 6 weeks, not to mention we also just put new tires on it (ouch!!).  We realized that we were putting more money into this car then it was worth. 

We decided it was time to look into another car. My husband's cousin just recently became a car broker.  He buys almost new cars at auctions and then can turn around and sell them.  He was kind enough to allow us to view his different websites through his log in to see if we could find the car we wanted.  Lots of these cars are old rental cars, or cars that dealerships are trying to get off their lots.  We quickly realized that it was going to be hard to get the car that we wanted in our price range.  We were looking at 2012-2014's.  The cousin said that Fall is the best time to buy from the auctions because everybody is clearing out the old cars making room for the 2015's.  We were just planning on being patient.  In the meantime the Altima was becoming more and more unreliable.  The very day that my husband said to me, that he absolutely couldn't drive that car to work one more day, was the very day that his cousin had found us a car.  We wanted a Toyota white Camry.  He ended up getting a 2013 Toyota Grey Camry.  He was able to get a smoking deal because this car had backed into a pole and had some bumper damage.  Because of the damage, it sold for $7,000 under blue book value.  And it totally put it into our price range.  Had it been in total perfect condition it would have made it several thousand dollars over our budget.  We felt truly blessed for how it all worked out.  We really felt like the Lord was looking out for us.  And I have to say that going from a 1993 to a 2013 is quite an upgrade.  It won't be fun having a car loan again, which we haven't had for several years, but we got a very low interest rate.  

I feel so blessed how the whole car thing worked out.  The Lord is constantly watching over our little family.  It was amazing that it was the very day my husband said he couldn't drive the Altima anymore to work, that we found another one that worked for our budget.  And because it had a little bit of damage, it kept it in our price range.  Every day I just feel truly blessed.  The Lord knows each one of us and our needs. I feel that every day I have to count my blessings, because every day I feel so blessed.