Living so far out has isolated me from the world and is driving me nuts. I need want NEED a car or I am going to die…seriously. I know that not having a second saves us money, but it’s not really worth it anymore. I’m sick of waiting for my husband’s day off and then having to swap spending time with him to get groceries and run other errands.

Logically you would think I could just run to the grocery store at least after he gets home from work. But I can’t. A week or two after we moved in, I went to get some groceries after he got home from work (late evening). Lucky me, two guys decided to follow me home and that really creeped me out. I remember them watching me put my groceries in the car and figured it was just a coincidence that they left right after me.

Of course they stayed back a ways as to not seem like they were following me, but I knew they were. So I did what any reasonable “real life grown-up” would do and turned down a strange, unfamiliar road to see if they followed me (and to avoid them knowing where I lived). Well wasn’t that interesting, they turned too. Then I started taking turn after turn, actually going in circles (or squares really) and so did they. Freaky!

I can’t remember if it was 12 or 15 turns, it was a couple of months ago now, but either one is way too many. They were obviously following me, so I finally hauled ass to the main road…I was probably going like 50mph in a quiet neighborhood. I turned to go home and sped like crazy to get there and turned the car off ASAP.

So maybe I’m being a great big scardy cat, but that’s okay—they really freaked me out and I don’t want to deal with that sh*t again. There also seems to be a lot of deliverance people skulking around and I do have a purty mouth.

Back to the car, sorry. I want to pay cash for a car that gets good gas mileage and isn’t very used. I would love to get one with under 50k miles on it, but I might just be dreaming. I don’t want to get a really used one because I have the worst luck and something big would go wrong that we couldn’t afford to fix.

I’m sure I’ll lower my expectations as time goes by out of desperation, but for now gently used sounds best. Originally, I had wanted an SUV because they’re big and cozy, will fit tons of stuff and would be much better for my back. Honestly, I won’t be able to get one and they use more gas.

So I’m hoping to get something like a Kia Sportage. It’s kinda like an SUV but smaller. Maybe I won’t be able to afford that either, but it does get me excited about saving money.

I know there seems to be a whole I want, I want, I want theme going on, between getting a second car and the bathroom makeover, but I can’t help it. I know that the money isn’t going to magically fall out the sky or anything. It’s going to take sacrifices and hardcore saving to be able to get these in the next year, but I’m up for the challenge.

We have already changed our Christmas ways to save money this year, so that will help a lot. I just need to stay focused and keep saving, even though there seems to be a hundred things pulling at our money right now. Oh, I forgot to mention the other stuff; I’m sure you get the idea though.

Hopefully I can stay strong and not end up getting a car loan because I’m so impatient. It would solve the immediate problem (2nd car) but would create other issues almost immediately. You never know though, if I actually save up enough money to pay cash for an almost new car, I might not be able to give it all away. It’s so different when you actually have the cash in your hands, which is what I would do to get the best possible deal. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Husband thinks that getting a second car should be the first priority. Since we only have one car and there is absolutely no public transportation out here, he wouldn’t be able to get to work if something happened.

He’s the one with a job, so it’s pretty important to make sure he can get there. Not to mention that just missing one day of work could be detrimental to our budget.

Plus it would also be nice not having to walk in the rain/snow/ice/freezing cold to get our daughter to and from school. Or just anywhere in general. We’ve already had to pass up on a few free school activities because I couldn’t get across town to pick her up.

Now we just need to decide between the bathroom makeover or second car, along with all the other things we want to do. I better figure it out soon because I need to get my goals ready for 2013.

What would you choose? 2nd car or bathroom makeover?