Needs vs. Wants - My sweet ride!

The sermon series at church this month has been dealing with finances, fear, uncertainty, etc... One of the main points has been that the average American doesn't live within their means, but rather they live above it. They live to have what they want vs. what they need. Which, if you're a Christ Follower, isn't what God has asked you to do with your money.

Brian and I were both taught (from the bible via our parents) as children that anything we have - house, clothes, cars, etc - comes from the hand of God. It's his to give and it's his to take away. It has never been an option in our minds to withhold money from God (i.e. giving to the church) because we understand that it's not ours to begin with.

Because of this mindset, we've made some different choices in life that people may think are crazy. One of those choices happened today when we purchased "my new sweet ride!"

This is it - my "new" 1992 Honda Accord Station Wagon! (I can hear the groans of jealousy that are coming from all of you...) :)

But seriously, this car is truly what we need right now, vs. what we want. If I could buy any car I wanted it would be a pink Mini. Do I need it? No. Is it practical? No - especially if we have kids in the next year or so. But it would be fun.

On the other hand, the Accord that we found was in the price range we needed. After the wedding we were working towards building up our savings, then Brian lost his job and we had to dip into savings (Which by the way is why savings are important!). So after he found a new job we started saving again. And then on Friday, his $500 Saturn decided to slip into neutral and not come back out of it. We knew this day would come so we had been setting money aside. Not the amount we had wanted to have, but enough to buy a usable used car.

And even though I laugh and call this new car "my sweet ride," I really am glad we have it. It is big enough to hold 4 adults comfortably. It has trunk space galor and with the seats down we'll have cargo space for camping gear, moving stuff, etc... And if we do have kids with in the next year or so there's room for a car seat, stroller and all the other baby stuff that gets packed into a car.

You might be wondering, "but it's a 1992!" The best part is that it's a Honda and it only has 160,000 miles on it. My 2000 Honda Civic is 8 years younger and has 121,000 on it. And I love my Civic. It's been a great little car that hasn't needed any major repairs - just general wear and tear like tires, oil changes, and the muffler. Not bad for an 8 year old car.

And so with this purchase of a need vs. a want, we've officially become a Honda family.