New Van

We've been driving a Neon for the last 5 years. Not a big deal with just the two of us, a little tight with three of us and virtually impossible with four. So I started looking a little while back for used cars. The top three contenders were the Jetta Wagon TDI, the Honda CR-V & the Honda Odyssey. I found one of each that were close in price and mileage. The Jetta was the highest mileage, but being TDI was really just broken in. The CR-V was the most expensive, but a really great model with tons of features. The Odyssey was the oldest, but offered tons more room then either of the other two. So it came down to numbers and the Odyssey won.

We are paying $120/month LESS than the Neon and $200/year LESS in insurance. That's a savings of around $1600/year. The Odyssey is listed as using about $1400/year in gas, which is a lot and is certainly more than the Neon. But with the lower payments and lower insurance, we still come out ahead of the Neon, because the Neon used about $980/year in gas. So based on these estimates, we $1200 ahead of ourselves.

What also couldn't be overlooked was the enormous amount of room the Odyssey offered. It seats seven while the Jetta and CR-V each seat five (like the Neon). While the Jetta and CR-V would solve our storage issues for travel, neither would help us get more people into the vehicle. So although we have more room, both the Jetta and CR-V would be full. The Odyssey will comfortably take another two adults in the back bench. I'm sure Stef will be among the first to thank us for that...