Carmpromise

So we bought a car today. When we moved to Seoul, we had decided not to bring a car; we could have done so for free, but Seoul has good public transportation, and we were going to be living right across the street from where she works. We sold our cars before leaving the US, and we've managed to go carless for about three months now.

I was fine with this, but as time has gone on the wife has begun to express dissatisfaction with this arrangement. For one thing, it's starting to get cold.. and she doesn't always catch the post shuttle to her school, which means a walk or a cab. It also presents a problem for groceries, although you can usually catch a cab at the commissary within a few minutes.

I think all the walking was doing us some good, but I can see her point.. and since she is the one working right now, and we're doing well financially, I finally caved. We met with a local broker today and ended up dropping about $2300 on a 1998 Hyundai Sonata III. It's a nice enough ride, and should do the job for the three miles a day we'll be putting on it. We pick it up on Monday.

Car insurance is pretty damn cheap here, which is nice. It's about $430/year for both of us, and if we could use USAA it would have been $120!

UPDATE: here's the offending vehicle; the wife has named her "Tess".