So instead of getting a new phone, I bought a new car instead over the weekend.
I didn't really need to, but Friday night I took my 2015 Kia Soul into Firestone for an oil change (that got delayed because of the pandemic) and at 42,000 miles it was getting close to where a lot of general maintenance was going to be needed in the next year or so (new tires, fuel system thingy, brake flushing thingy [If you can't tell, I don't know much more about cars than oil changes and how to fix a flat tire]) which would've cost at least $600, but probably more.
Well my parents' house is literally across the street from the Firestone, so I had dinner with them while they were doing my oil change and I was complaining to them about this, my dad is like "There probably aren't a whole lot of 2015 Kia Souls in as good of condition as yours and under 50,000 miles, so why we don't we go tomorrow and see what number they throw at you. It's near the end of the month, and the best thing... You don't need to buy."
I was like okay. So we meet at the Kia dealership on Saturday and five and a half hours later I walked out of their with a new 2020 Kia Soul (Gravity Grey), which I picked up yesterday (they had to swap a vehicle to a Kia dealership in Rockford, IL for it). It's a nice upgrade, with a ton of new features (Heated Mirrors
) from my old Soul seeing as the 2015 was the second generation and the 2020 is the third generation.
Plus I got a great deal not only from it being end of the month, but also end of the model year (2021 Souls are coming in this month). Well that, and my dad absolutely dragged the salesman and the dealership manager through the fire during negotiations. I almost felt bad for them. My dad got them to come up on my trade in and lower the price, lowering the total price by over a third from their first offer.
It's still a little surreal, since the last time I bought a car I waited so long that I knew I was going to need to get a new car a couple of months before I did it. If you asked me Friday morning if I was going to buy a new car over the weekend I would've laughed at you over the absurdity of it.