For the past 3 years I have driven a 1994 Toyota Corolla, or Corie the Corolla. She has treated me well, I got her my freshmen year of college and that summer I drove out to western North Carolina with her. I took her to Chicago a few times and Iowa City too, we went places. However I didnt trust her to get to Mississippi either time that I went, and was able to borrow my dad’s Camry for both those trips. Well When we got back from D.C. on Monday night I was going to take my girlfriend Joey home and also drive to Young Life club, but Corie would not start. The next day I tried to start her when it was a little warmer still nothing. I thought about it the past couple days and I knew that it might not be that expensive to fix this time but it would also have been the third time I’d have to pay for repairs. I had to replace the alternator and the battery at the same time, then a few months ago my headlights stopped working and it was not a matter of replacing the bulbs I had to replace the switch which was REALLY expensive so the third time was just too much for me. I had planned on buying a new car at the end of the school year so I decided that 6 months early would not be a big deal, so I looked at carmax for Honda Elements because they’re amazing cars. For my past couple road trips I realized that a sedan is so uncomfortable for that long in a car so I knew that an Element would be a nice deviation from those feelings of being cramped, they also have a ton of cargo space and the seats fold down into a bed. It just so happened that a local dealership had a 2004 Element with 50,000 miles at a great price and its also orange, the color I originally wanted so it was a no brainer. Unfortunately as I type this out it’s being sleeted on with freezing rain so that hurts a little bit but I think Ellie will be ok.
The only thing I have struggled with is what Mahatma Gandhi said “Live simply so that others may simply live”, in knowing that I have decided to cut back my expenses in several areas and also increase my giving to people in need. I’m also picking up more hours at work to offset the increase in cost for gas.
