Okay, so technically this is about how I bought my second car…

My first car was from my grandma, and it was about 15 years old so my parents bought it from her for a good price. But we’ll just say that this is my first car that I’ve purchased with my own money.

So to preface this whole situation, I was probably at my all time low. 

I was really struggling with a toxic relationship, I was trying to decide if I wanted to move to Los Angeles and when, and everything just seemed to be super unclear. I was looking for clarity and it wasn’t coming anytime soon. 

Fall of 2018 I finally decided it was time to go see a counselor. I’m not really sure why I put it off for so long – I think I was just worried that the things they would tell me would be something I’ve already heard from family & friends. 

Nonetheless I decided to give it a shot because I was desperate. I needed help to get out of the rut I was in. 

I actually ended up sticking with it for about 6 months and would go once every other week. We talked about all the decisions I was struggling with and even addressed some issues from my childhood, which was quite surprising. 

The holidays rolled around and I was just miserable. Still had no clarity whatsoever. I kept questioning when I should move to LA, and it was starting to get to the point where it was obsessive. 

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I had thought through all of my options and tried to plan out what exactly I would need to do in order to make the move. The first thing on my list was to make a decision about my car. 

My “first” car that was my grandma’s 2002 Lexus was a great car. It kept me safe, it got me from point A to point B, and I was really happy with it. However, I knew it was getting old and it was reaching the point where major parts needed to be replaced. 

I had a feeling that I wouldn’t want that burden hanging over me if I were to start fresh in Los Angeles. However, this car only had 120,000 miles on it! 

Honda

I decided to drag my friend along with me to the Honda dealership – I was really intrigued by the new Honda Civic. I initially thought I wanted to lease the car, so we went to talk to someone and test drive the car. 

I wasn’t impressed by the test drive, and I wasn’t really impressed by the salesman, either. He sat in the back while my friend sat with me in the front, so I didn’t really feel like I experienced anything that made me want to say “yep, that’s it. This is the car for me.” 

So we left the dealership and got something to eat. That trip was unsuccessful. 

While still not having much clarity, I used my connections to my advantage here. One of my mom’s really good friends used to work for Nissan, so I talked to him on the phone for a while about what he thought I should do. 

He told me that I should look into buying a used vehicle. At first I was like ah no way, I want my own brand new one!

Nissan

I went to the Nissan dealership and decided to take a test drive in the Nissan Altima. This test drive went better, as the salesman was walking me through all the new features and explaining why it was the latest & greatest and blah blah blah. 

The only problem was the price tag was too high for me and I knew it was too high. Back to the drawing board for me!

I ended up looking at all the Honda dealers in the central Ohio area to see what their used car inventory was like. 

Back To Honda

I actually stumbled upon one at the same dealership I had gone to previously, and it was a certified pre-owned 2016 Honda Civic EX-T, white, with super dark tinted windows. And a turbo engine. That’s the one I wanted. 

I went back to the dealership on December 30th to take a test drive of that car. After going through all the annoying paperwork, the salesman let me test drive it by myself. Maybe that’s not unheard of, but I wasn’t expecting it! 

I took it for a spin and it was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. I kept yelling to myself in the car that it was f*%^$# sweet! 

Alright, so I had to get this car. But I wanted to negotiate it down! Thankfully, I had a very rare connection…turns out that my dad knows the president of the dealership!

That helped me narrow down on a great deal and I traded in the Lexus. I left the dealership that evening with my own Honda Civic. And I was ecstatic. Little did I know that this would be the greatest thing to help me put one foot in front of the other on the path to clarity. 

While it took some time for the clarity to come, this was single handedly the greatest thing I had done for myself thus far (besides going to counseling). 

I could now cross a huge thing off of my list. And every decision I needed to make from there on became easier and easier. Around mid-March of 2019 was when I woke up one morning and I said okay, I’m ready. I’m ready to move to Los Angeles. 

The next several weeks were very stressful for me as I had to move out of my apartment and get everything ready for the move. 

I sold nearly all of my furniture, I had to pack up and ship the things I was going to send to LA, I had to ship my car, and coordinate my flight. And while all of this was insanely stressful, they were the final remaining steps to my clarity and my freedom. 

If I hadn’t bought that car, I don’t know where I would be today. I don’t know if I would have had the strength to continue to make the big decisions that needed to be made. 

Share in the comments below – what was your most recent car experience like and how did it change you?