I don’t know about you, but I do a lot of driving. For me, a typical week looks like driving to and from school, multiple extracurricular activities every night, and softball and soccer tournaments throughout the state on the weekends. My and my kids’ hectic schedule results in hundreds and hundreds of miles driven weekly.
For better or worse, my 2015 Honda Odyssey has become an extension of me. She has seen me go from a mom of two to a mom of four. She has moved with us from Maryland to Virginia to South Carolina. Ride (pun intended) or die is a bit dramatic, but we’ve been through things together.
It’s sad to admit: she’s long in the tooth. She’s constantly mistreated by the little people I cart around every day, with trash stuffed in cup holders, crumbs in every nook and cranny, and stinky equipment left in the trunk to bake in the SC summer sun. When she’s clean, I’m happy; when she’s dirty, I feel it. As my body aches and wrinkles appear, my Odyssey is getting bumps and dings to match.
Last month, she was detailed. It took five hours, but when she was done, she glistened. Not like a new car, not even close, but I was reminded of the days when she had that new car smell and it took two weeks to add a hundred miles to her odometer, not two days.
When I purchased her in the fall of 2015, I was ecstatic. I said I was going to ride her until she reached 160,000 miles (she is a Honda after all!). At 28 years young, I fully embraced being a Minivan Mom. There’s a button for everything! Sliding doors are literally one of the best inventions ever. I can drop my kid off at school and drive away while the door is still closing! When I found out I was pregnant with twins, my oldest daughter, age seven at the time said, “Now we are going to use ALL of the seats in the minivan!”
In 2015, 160,000 miles seemed like an eternity away, but here we are pulling onto its street and next year knocking at its door. When I said in 2015 that I would keep her until 160,000 miles . . .
1) I don’t think I really believed it.
2) That was with the assumption that I would be out of the Minivan Era of my life.
But, 10 years later, I’M NOT. I don’t think so, anyway. But, I don’t know how much longer I can keep her. I’ve paid my Minivan Mom dues, she is a hot mess and this was only supposed to be an era, not a forever. Things are starting to go wrong with her, aka she’s getting expensive. I’m starting to wonder if I’m throwing good money after bad as I continue to put money into repairs. She’s also gross.
So, I’m posing to you the battle that has been in my head for the past year: Do I buy another minivan?
I’m asking you because as a mom, you get it. I understand the importance of removing emotion, when needed, and crunching the numbers to make financial decisions. But, my feelings are completely hip-checking logic out on this one.
Reasons to Minivan Again
So, here’s my thought process for why I need another minivan (sigh):
- I have four kids, most cars barely fit me and my kids let alone my entire family. So, I need a comfortable third-row seat at a minimum.
- The activities are not stopping, so I need something big enough to hold equipment, other people’s kids, etc.
- Have I mentioned how much I love buttons and sliding doors?
- My husband drives a Tahoe, so that’s out (we spent SO MANY hours of our lives making that car purchase decision too) and it’s just too big for me.
Reasons to NOT Minivan Again
My (mostly emotional, but still valid) reasons to not get another minivan:
- I’ve already been driving a minivan for 10 years — my prime! — am I really going to do it for another five or 10 years?
- Minivans are freaking expensive. So, I potentially need to cough up $800+ a month for a car payment for a car I’m really not that excited about?!
- I sacrifice everything for my kids. I, again, have to buy a car based on my being their Uber?! And they’re just going to trash it anyway. And likely make fun of me for driving a minivan longer than a decade. Ugh, motherhood.
- I’m ready to remove my Minivan Mom sash.
- I want to be cool, darn it!
I just went through this myself–do I pay a big chunk of cash to get the ac fixed in my odyssey, plus more for other maintenance, or do I take that money and use it as a down payment on another car, maybe something not a minivan… Well, I drove a couple of things, and we took a short road trip in a 2 row car, and I ended up getting the van fixed. Even if I’d had to get another car though, we would’ve gone with another minivan–I realized that we def still need the three rows and I don’t really like driving 3 row suvs–either tha 3rd row is super cramped, or the car is huge and drives like a truck. The minivan may not be cool, but it’s super comfortable and has all the cup holders, cargo space and leg room we need.