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Finding the Right Car

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Finding the Right Car

By Erin

*This is a Sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions remain my own.*

One of the biggest purchases we make in our lifetime, is with our cars. It takes a lot of planning, saving, and deciding what you can and cannot live without when it comes to all the extra fancy features that are available these days. Car buying can be fun and exciting, but also stressful in trying to figure out exactly what you want. It takes a lot of planning and research to find the one that’s just right that you will be happy with for many years to come.

I recently made the leap and bought my first ever brand new car. I have only had used ones in the past. I ended up choosing the Prius Prime Advanced. Here are some tips on how I chose the car that was right for me.

Research

One of the first and most important things you need to do is research, research, research. When it came time to purchase my Toyota Prius Prime, I considered so many different things. First, being in Southern California and how bad traffic has become, I wanted something that got amazing gas milage (the Prius Prime gets 54 MPG/133 MPGe) Second, it was important to me to have something with a lot of safety features. Third, it needed to be comfortable with enough space in the back to hold all of my horse stuff and for road trips to hold all of our luggage. Fourth, it had to be affordable (with the Prius Prime you can get up to a $4,500 federal tax credit when buying new). I did a lot of researching online, and a lot of friends and family gave me their advice. Cars.com is a wonderful site you will want to check out when it comes time to research and find the car that’s right for you.

Budget

The next thing you need to do before you really start looking and get your heart set on something, is to know what your budget is before committing to a car purchase. I’ll admit I spent a little more than I would have liked to with this one, but I also could afford it in the long run. Don’t forget that buying a car includes more than just the car loan, but you also need to keep in mind and remember to include the price of registration, insurance, gas, extended warranties, maintenance and more.

Test Drive

Always be sure to test-drive a car before buying. You want to make sure it is comfortable and easy enough for you to handle. You don’t want to end up with something you hate driving or is difficult for you to maneuver around.

Optional Extended Warranties and Care Packages

Make sure to look into this and make sure you include this in your budget! This is where it got me. I had not thought too much of this, until I thought of how expensive it would be to replace all of the fancy gadgets that I was getting in my vehicle. Since it is very high tech, with a lot of computers and things like the 11.6-in. HD multimedia display that you see above, they would be very expensive to replace, so it made a lot of sense for me to get this.

Don’t settle

This was the hardest part for me. I didn’t want to settle. This is where it really pays off to do your research. Since I did my research, I was able to get the car I wanted, at a good price, in the color I wanted.

Benefits

Are there any perks or financial benefits you will get for purchasing one car over another you are looking at? This was a huge factor for me, and one big reason I went with buying new versus buying used. With the Prius Prime, I can get up to a $4,500 Federal tax credit, I can apply for a Clean Air Vehicle Sticker to be able to drive in the carpool lane when I am alone in the car, along with many other state benefits for having a clean air vehicle. The other car I had been looking at, the Camry Hybrid, didn’t offer any of these perks, so it was a no brainer to go with the Prius.  

What do you look for when buying a car?

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2–Meet the Cast!

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2–Meet the Cast!

By Erin

In Marvel Studios’ latest adventure, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” the Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage. Picking up right where 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” left off, Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” continues the action-packed, irreverent, epic space adventures of Peter Quill aka Star-Lord and his gang of eccentric characters as they patrol and protect the universe. We are introduced to Awesome Mixtape #2 where the story follows the team as they fight to stay together while traversing the outer reaches of the cosmos. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes’ aid as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand.

Before the movie blasts into theaters everywhere this Friday, May 5th, we had the chance to meet the cast at a press conference last month. Take a look at some of the hilarious moments that were captured and what the cast had to share with us about the new film.

Moderated by Kara Warner from People Magazine, it was just one laugh after another. Look at all those smiles!

Press Conference #1 with the below talent:

  • Chris Pratt (“Peter Quill / Star-Lord”)
  • Kurt Russell (“Ego”)
  • Michael Rooker (“Yondu”)
  • Elizabeth Debicki (“Ayesha”)
  • Director James Gunn
  • Producer Kevin Feige

Press Conference #2 with the below talent:

  • Zoe Saldana (“Gamora”)
  • Dave Bautista (“Drax”)
  • Karen Gillan (“Nebula”)
  • Sean Gunn (“Kraglin”)
  • Pom Klementieff (“Mantis”)
  • Sylvester Stallone (“Member of Nova Corps”)
  • Producer Kevin Feige

The first question was directed at Elizabeth regarding her new role as Ayesha. Being a new member of the cast, what kind of initiation process was there, and what exactly convinced her to join this ragtag bunch.

Elizabeth: James convinced me obviously. He’s extremely persuasive, not that I needed convincing. My first day on set was when we were shooting in the throne room, and I was obviously terrified of playing this extremely powerful creature. I remember sitting up on the throne for a long time and all the Guardians were in front of me. It was so intimidating, and it was about two hours before we spoke to each other, I think. They all came up in this line to sort of come and say hello. I was like, please come and say hello to me! Someone say hello. And then that was fine after that.

Also new to the cast is Kurt Russell as Ego.

Kurt: They do this weird thing. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. You have to do this thing, you have to go to Chris’s house… I don’t know how much I can say. You have to bring over some food. The truth is that when I read the script I wanted to make sure I was kind of understanding it correctly and I hadn’t seen the first movie. All of a sudden, one day I was doing Hateful Eight stuff like this, and all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, boom, my phone and the people around me are saying, are you gonna do, oh that’s great, are you gonna be Star Lord’s dad? Are you gonna be Peter Quill’s father and are you gonna do Guardians of the Galaxy and I, I just was like, guys, I don’t really know what they’re talking about. And I saw the movie and when I saw the movie, I immediately started getting it. I also immediately started wanting to do it. That was immediately followed by, everybody loved the first movie. What you don’t want to do is do something that’s gonna make them not like the second one, right? I don’t know about you, but I said yeah. I told James that. I said, I don’t want to mess this thing up, so I need your help.

James Gunn was asked if there is one thing that he wanted to make sure not to mess up.

James: The movie? I don’t know. I just wanted to continue the film from the first movie. So many sequels are not good. The primary reason in studying them seemed to be that so many of them just kind of do the same thing the first movie did with different template, and so they say, oh people liked the dance-off in the first movie, so what’s our version of the dance-off? People liked “we are Groot” in the first movie, what’s our version of “we are Groot”? And instead of doing that, we really tried to let these characters grow and change. We want to watch them become new people and different people in every film that we come up with. I think allowing them to be themselves and do their thing, I know that sounds strange because I’m writing what they say, but sometimes I’m just letting it happen inside my own imagination and letting the characters go where they wanted to go. I think the thing that I didn’t want to mess up was just trying to be a rehash of the first movie. I think people were surprised by the first movie, people have been surprised by the second film, and to give people something new and something different from what they already had.

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