Our 8 passenger Toyota minivan is crammed with bodies when we all go somewhere together. Our big kids complain with moans and groans every time. Don’t blame them a bit.
As soon as Hazel joins us, we will have officially outgrown our faithful charcoal friend, in numbers and in size of passengers. This brings us to the crossroad that every growing family meets when #4 or #7 comes along:
A choice beween vanity and convenience.
Our cars are all paid for and the last thing we want is a car payment. So upgrading to one of the newer 9-passenger SUV's wouldn’t be wise. (According to Jeremy you can’t find them in older models, or they are very rare. Is this true?)
So we have two options:
A) Take two cars when we all go somewhere together (which happens maybe once or twice a week) and rent a big van for road trips
or
B) Sell the Sienna and get an ugly 12-passenger van and a cheap little gas-saver for me to run around in. (The two would have to total around $10k. So we’re talking plain-Jane and high-miles.)
I refuse to drive a huge gas-guzzling van around for all my errands when the kids are at school. It’s not just about vanity (although, let’s be honest…that is part of it.) It’s about using a lot of unnecessary fuel. Sorry, not happening.
What to do, what to do? Have any of you with big families gone with option A? I’d like to know how it worked.
Post-edit note: Actually, there is nothing ugly about a 12 or 15 passenger van. In fact, I absolutely love what they represent when families drive them. Drivers of these vans are blessed to be parents of many. That is in fact, beautiful. Ugly was a harsh term.
4 comments:
I wish I knew! I thought about something a little more sporty than my Odyssey, but I just do it because of the space in the back and the fact that it seats 8! Not to mention the better gas mileage than an SUV. I think rather than a 12 passenger I'd get the van that Jon and Kate Plus 8 had. Its not so monstrously big. Although I'm not sure how expensive it is!
I wonder if it was a Mercedes one like my sister's. Those are actually pretty cool. :) But way over our budget since you can't get them more than a couple of years old and they are nearly impossible to find used!
Hahahah! we had the same dilemma a few years ago. We went with the 12 passenger van and a smaller runaround car and never looked back. For comfort and space you just cannot beat them. We bought a Chevy 1 ton that had 17 k mile on it that had just been used at their factory so it was in like new condition and 1/2 the price. EveryBODY has been very happy since! We also use it to hall stuff and kids in our ward to stake functions. We love our van, we named him Moby because he is big and white! We have never had any trouble with our chevy in the 7 yrs we've had it.
P.S. I'm 5 '1 and pretty small and I can handle Moby just fine. It is surprising to people though2 when I drive up and hop out!
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