What's Red, Shiny and Clean?

My new car, that's what!

This morning I was here...

And now I'm here, what a difference! My new car has all sorts of fancy features, like this awesome button marked AC. Guess what happens when you press it? Cold air comes blowing out of the vents! What a wonderful surprise! And if you play a CD and press the eject button, the CD actually comes out of the CD player. I know, I know! And to top it all off, when you are done driving and want to exit your vehicle, you only have to press the seat belt button once to release the belt. No wiggling the button, pushing it down from a different angle or yanking on the belt required. Cars these days, fancy shmancy I tell you.

With 140,000+ miles on my last car and some looming (and expensive) car repairs on the horizon, I decided it was time for a new set of wheels. DBF and I went car shopping over the weekend and I test drove a Nissan Sentra and a Toyota Corolla. The Nissan was surprisingly roomy and I loved the way it drove, but the price just wasn't right. I felt like I was going to hit my head on the roof of the Corolla and wasn't crazy about the way it drove, so I decided to go for Honda Civic #2. I got the same model that I had before, but its got a couple of new perks that I love. Its got automatic up as well as automatic down on the driver side window, a USB port for my iPod and I can set the volume on the speakers to adjust up or down depending on how fast I'm going. And you gotta love the color!

I went for a five year loan at 1.9%, so my payments are around $240 a month. I'll have to increase the insurance coverage since I'm financing the car, but the difference isn't all that much. When I paid off my previous car last year, I moved that amount of money into savings each month, so I don't have to juggle anything to be able to make the car payments. It was really nice to have no car payments, but it didn't make sense to keep throwing money into my car and there was no way I was going through a hot, muggy NJ summer without air conditioning. Its April 6 and its 75 degrees here already!

I did squeeze in some shopping today too:

Rite Aid

• Crest Pro Health Toothpaste (4.2 oz) $2.29, use $1.50 coupon (3/21 RP) and get back $1.50 (SCR) = $0.71 profit
• Gillette Fusion Power or Manual Razor $8, use $4 coupon (4/4 P&G) and get back $4 (SCR #43) = FREE
• Drano Max $5.99 - there's a satisfaction guarantee on this if it doesn't work well
• 2 Rite Aid freezer bags $2.99 each, BOGO sale = $1.49 each
• 3 Musketeers Raspberry flavored $2.19 - 50% off clearance price, DBF and I have been looking for these for a couple weeks so I had to snag a bag when I saw them in the store. Forgot to put them in the pic
• Used $5 off $20 coupon, total was $10.68

Kmart - went here after picking up my car. I couldn't wait to get back in and drive around some more, so of course this took foreeeeevvvvvveeeeeerrrrrrr!

• Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips Mascara Duo $10.49, used $4 peelie coupon and will submit for Try Me Free rebate = $4 profit
• 4 Tidy Cats Breeze litter pads $5.29 each (these were marked $4.99 in the aisle, grr), used four $1 coupons - doubled to $2 each (2/7 RP) = $3.29 each
• Tidy Cats Breeze litter pellets $6.99, used $1 coupon - doubled to $2 (2/7 RP) = $4.99
• 2 Wylers drink mixes $1 each - got these thinking my total would be too low to use both gift cards, but it turns out I didn't need them
• Used two $10 gift cards (from Hershey's promo), total was $8.99

This was new - I had to sign up for a Kmart rewards card to get the coupons to double. Of course I didn't realize this until we were halfway through my transaction. Since Kmart is incapable of having more than two registers open at once, the huge line of people behind me glared as the cashier had to void the order, sign me up for the stupid card and rering everything. Ugh! At least I used up both gift cards and don't have to go back to Kmart any time soon.