New Car Shopping

My wife wants a new car. More accurately she wants to replace *my* car. I drive the designated dog car. Lately she's been taking the dogs to the park on a daily basis and it's making a mess of her nice new Audi.

Maybe you're thinking "Hey, why doesn't she just drive your car? Are you some sort of territorial bastard that won't share?" Of course the answer to that is "Yes, I am a territorial bastard. I pee a circle around my motorcycles at least once per week. ... But not when it comes to something as cookie-cutter as a 2003 Subaru Forester. It's a glorified toaster. She's welcome to drive it." The problem is it's a manual transmission and she doesn't want to learn how to drive a stick.

So she wants us to get a new dog-friendly, automatic-transmission, AWD car to replace my Forester.

Well, if we're going to get a new car, I have some requirements too. We should get something that can tow an enclosed trailer (at which point I can go out and *get* an enclosed trailer). Since it will mostly be doing car-type-duty it should get decent gas mileage and drive like a car.

After a little shopping our short list is:

Dodge Nitro R/T
Toyota Highlander
Toyota RAV4 V6

We haven't driven anything yet. I suspect we'll find that the RAV4 is the most logical choice for us. But I'll want the Nitro anyway.

This could turn out to be a big win for me. I could end up with a new car, a new trailer *and* additional spending money. How? Because of how our finances work. There's MyMoney, HerMoney and OurMoney. A new car would definitely be paid for with OurMoney but since I bought the Subaru before we were married any money we get from selling it is MyMoney. And it will be more than enough MyMoney to buy a trailer.

Well, maybe putting that money towards the Ducati loan would be a good idea too. That was a big MyMoney purchase.