We had to get a new car

Our car was hit by another car a week or so ago. It wasn't our fault and no one was hurt but our car was pretty badly damaged. You can see it in the picture to the right. We could still use the car but the passenger door was hard to close and we worried that it might not stay closed. So, we were looking forward to having the insurance company inspect it so we could get it fixed quickly. But, instead, the insurance adjuster said that due to our car's age (12 years) and number of miles (over 170,000), it wasn't worth repairing and totaled it. We would have to turn in the car and get what they said it was worth. But the amount they gave us would not have allowed us to get a car that was comparable to what we had. So, we decided to bite the bullet and just get a newer car on our own.
It doesn't seem fair that we could be going along fine with an old car that ran well. It certainly had its problems and was costing more to repair but the problems were familiar and it was manageable. Now, out of the blue, we are forced to take a lot of time filling out reports, taking time to look for which new cars were available that we could afford, visiting places with cars, trying them out, comparing what we saw, bargaining for a fair price and going through the hassle of changing everything over to a new car.

We have gotten used to the room we had in the van but we found that there was no way we could afford a van of a decent age and in any kind of decent shape. So, something like a cross-over or SUV was more what we'd need to get. We still couldn't afford a new cross-over or SUV but we finally found this 2015 Ford Escape that you can see in the picture to the left. Moving from a 2005 vehicle to a 2015 vehicle was quite an eye opener. All the cars we looked at had video screens on the dashboard. They all had back-up cameras. They all had a lot of nice standard features. Even though we bought an older car with the least amount of features as we could afford, we feel like we've moved up in the world. Now, if we can just make the payments!