Surprise purchase

I thought that today was going to be a good day for getting things done, and I did get a few things crossed off a long list this morning whilst the FH was out, but then he came home and things started to go a bit haywire.

He got back at about 11 and told me about a secondhand Volvo he had seen on his travels this morning, so I mulled that over whilst he was out at lunch, and then we decided to go and have a look at it this afternoon. The upshot of all of that was that I wrote quite a large cheque out, and we have a new car!!

It is an L registered Volvo 850 estate, so it is slightly smaller than the 940 we have at the moment. It is in very good condition, and there are lots of nice features like leather seats, which we are quite pleased with, electric windows all round, instead of just in the front, and there are also two small seats in the boot! It is a year younger than 940 and hasn't been worked quite so hard. The dealer took it in part-exchange and they have done work on it since that owner had it, so they know it, and told us what work they have done on it recently. They are going to give it an up-to-date MOT so we get 12 months' worth of that, and put 6 months road tax on it as well.

The 940 will be moving on, either to a new owner who wants a banger, or to the scrapyard! We have had it for about 6 and a half years and it cost us £1000 so it has cost less than £15 a month over its time with us for the actual car. This new one has cost £1295, so I hope that we can keep it for at least as long, and we'll have another bargain. If we are careful with it and keep up to date with the maintenance, we should have a good chance.

I've sorted the insurance out to start on Monday 1st February, so the tax can be arranged to start then as well, and hopefully we'll be able to bring it home early next week.