Our First Major Financial Goal

This last weekend was a crazy one at our house. We started the weekend by going to the car show up in Sandy. We have been thinking that we would like to get a new SUV in the summer, so we wanted to check out what all of the major car companies had to offer. We initially were set on getting a Toyota Highlander, but the third row was small and cramped. So, we browsed around and were really impressed by the two SUVs in Hyundai's line (Santa Fe and Veracruz). Since, Monday was a holiday, we headed over to the Hyundai dealership to see what they had. They happened to be having a crazy sale on '09 models and we came pretty close to grabbing a new Santa Fe. After sleeping on it, we realized that we may have been getting ourselves in a little over our heads, and decided instead to start looking for a used vehicle that would last us through dental school, at which time we could buy something fresh off the lot. My (Danny) dream car is actually the '96-'02 body style Toyota 4Runner, and it seems that Brynn has always thought that she would look good rolling around town in one as well. So, it was settled quite quickly that that is the car that we would like to get. After searching local classifieds and other used car websites, we figured out about how much they are running for, and we set some financial goals to make it happen in the early summer. This week has been really fun for me, because this is the first time that we have had a major investment that we have planned and worked for together. We set aside one of our bank accounts as the 4Runner account and even made a poster (above) to chart our progress toward our goal. Sure, buying a brand spanking new Santa Fe would have been fun (except for maybe the 5 or 6 years of monthly payments), but I am really excited about working toward a common goal and picking up something that we can afford. Stay tuned, and we'll post pictures once we finally find our beauty.