One Year With A Car

People have remembered the one year “anniversary” of the pandemic and the start of things shutting down in many ways. Maybe by counting the number of days kids have been in (or out of) school. Perhaps by the last time you attended a live sporting event or concert. For me, there are two ways that I count the time. The first is my dad passing away. The second is getting a new car.

Back in 2017, I got in an accident, and the insurance company determined that it made more sense to send me a check rather than put money into repairing a 14 year old car. With a third child on the way, we decided to lease a Honda Odyssey. The car was what we needed, but we also didn’t want to spend the amount it would have cost to purchase the vehicle. Fast forward to March 2020. The lease was ending, and I definitely didn’t feel comfortable visiting multiple dealerships to search for a new car. Plus, not knowing what the future would hold, leasing again seemed like a good option for us. So after contacting dealerships online and by phone, we settled on another Honda Odyssey at a location near us. I did a quick test drive, filled out the paperwork (which was not as quick), exchanged the Hondas, and brought home a new car.

(This is a stock photo. Our car hasn't been close to an ocean.)

One year later, we have about 2,300 miles on it. As a comparison, my dad and I drove more than that in one week going from Pittsburgh to San Diego for my job after college. Several months ago, I calculated the amount of money we have paid for the car between the down payment and the monthly payments per mile driven. Even without including insurance payments and getting gas, this was not a fun exercise.

The silver lining to all of us this is there is little chance that we'll exceed the 36,000 miles on the three-year lease!