Let’s talk cars. Why? Because I have been sitting in the same chair at my car dealership for over three hours now. “Are you buying a car, Renee?” No. I already did that. Three days ago! And now here I am again, because after just three days of driving my new ‘problem free’ vehicle, the beautiful little “check engine” light turned on. I figured it was just a glitch, but of course I did the responsible adult thing and went to go get it checked out. My dealership said they would be happy to have a look. This dealership, by the way, is about an hour from where I live. And as we know if you add on the wonderful LA traffic, it was an extra 30 minutes. So I got here around 11 and they said they would just take a quick peek. Well, two hours later, the guy, (we will call him Mark.) Mark comes over and tells me, “ Okay, so something is actually leaking inside of your vehicle. This is going to take at least a few hours. Can I take your number in case you want to head out of here and we can call you when it’s ready?” Well Mark, you see, the thing is, I don’t really know anyone from here. Therefore I don’t really have anyone who can just pick me up for a little bit to save me from hours of sitting in your oversized, not nearly cozy enough, chairs. But I gave him my number anyway.

So here I am! Which leads me to the topic of cars. You get it now, right? Why I’m so hung up on this topic right now? Okay. So, car shopping when you just move here is not so fun. At least it’s not when you’re like me and need a used, under $7,000, vehicle. If this is the case, CarMax is out of the question. Their cheapest vehicles are at least $9,000. You see I made the mistake of going in without looking on their site. When I sat down with one of the employees, he showed me some of the prices of their cheapest cars, and seconds later I thanked them for their time and left.

So where do you find a car? Craiglist or a peachy little dealership that has uncertified used cars. Now when finding a car, craigslist is actually very helpful, but also full of scams. Just remember, if something seems too good to be true, it is.  And as for the dealerships, sometimes there are some real treasures! I mean besides the hours of who knows what they’re doing to my car right now, it’s pretty great. It has a great speaker system and it’s pretty. So being a lady, those were two things I took into deep consideration when deciding on my jeep. Yes I got a jeep. Sure, they aren’t always the best on gas and they are a little more expensive, but I am just about 10 feet tall, so fitting into a little Nissan is a no. But anyways, I’m sure you will end up loving whatever semi damaged, cheap, ‘probably-will-break- down-in-the-future’, dream car you end up getting.

Best of luck,

Renee