Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Getting Down to the Bottomline!

After spending the better part of Saturday morning trying to get myself and my two girls ready to leave the house for a simple trip to Target, dealing with my older daughter's whines and cries about having to get out of her jammies and how she didn't want to leave the house, helping my little one who was struggling to carry out the essentials for a trip to the store - a dolly, a cardboard box, her purse, and a small basketball - I finally got them all into the car and strapped into their seats and lo and behold -- THE CAR WOULDN'T START!

Now, of course, since finishing paying off this car recently, it has been to the garage no less than 3 out of the past 4 weeks. I'm becoming a regular there. You should only be a "regular" at a restaurant or a coffeehouse -- not a car repair shop!! So, much as we'd like to put it off, we are in the market for a new vehicle!

My husband and I have been talking about getting another minivan -- we had leased one for 3 years and loved it, but we were buying our current home at the time the lease was up, and decided to get a less expensive car, to go with the more expensive house! Anyway, 5 years and another child later, we are ready to go back to a minivan! I've been trying to do a lot of research -- looking through Consumer Reports, researching on the internet, etc. But today I finally found a website that really cuts through the dealer and car manufacturer "mumbo jumbo" and speaks to what is important to me, as a mom!

It's a great website called Mother Proof: Car Reviews By Real Moms and you can read all sorts of reviews on different makes and models of cars -- all from a mother's perspective! This is great, because they tell you about how easy it is to get your kids in and out, how easy the doors are for kids to open and close, how good or bad those "swivel" seats are on some of the new minivans, how many cups holders there are for sippy cups -- you name it, if it's important to a mom, it's in there!

Ok, I'm off -- back to my search!

4 comments:

Christine said...

That looks like a good site, however, I have to take exception with the title:
"A quest for your quintessential mom-mobile"

That gives me the willies like a woman's whole focus in life is to be carting her kids around. Please could we have some other personality than mother chauffeur!!!

How about "A quest for your quintessential life-mobile"

Kind of like the "Bag-of life"

Teamcarbone said...

Fascinating website. I like the reviews and the detail about the vehicle, cost, mileage and safety info. Great. Lots of luck in your quest for a new car. My two cents is to look into previously leased vehicles you'll save yourself a lot of money and with some of the savings then you can buy and extended warranty.

The Fine Art of Motherhood said...

I know -- it's such a stereotype!

(PS -- I didn't find this that crabby! ;)

The Fine Art of Motherhood said...

Thanks - we're taking everyone's "two cents" into consideration!