How much for that car in the window?

I have a confession to make. Until 2 months ago, I was a card carrying SUV owner. Yes, a member of the bGreen team had an SUV. This had been weighing on me for some time. How could I be telling people to be green and then hop in my SUV to drive around? I justified it because I got it almost 10 years ago before I knew gas prices would rise or even understood what the repercussions were for driving around that gas guzzling machine. I wanted to get rid of it, but new cars are expensive, so my best option was to stick with what I had for as long as I could.



My SUV was a problem, but thanks to an accident (everyone is fine, thankfully) I have been given a clean slate. So now I am car-less and SUV-free but trying to decide what my next car will be. For a while I thought maybe Zipcar could fill my needs. I have been using Zipcar and it has been great. "Wheels when I want them" is a very accurate description of their services. However, for my needs a full time car is needed. I make many weekend trips and need a car too often to rely on Zipcar solely.



Let's get to the heart of the matter though. I am prematurely shopping for a new car. I hadn't saved for a new car at all and promised myself when I did get a new car I would get a hybrid or very fuel efficient car. Now my car shopping experience is being "driven" by price more than anything else. I had no car payment and now I need to decide: do I get an old cheap car I can pay for outright or do I go up a little and get more options and a newer car (with car payments)?



It's a MAJOR dilemma and everyday I go back and forth on what I should do. I really want a fuel efficient small car with nice options but the sad reality is that I have a budget of 15k, pricing me out of my requirements. For a budget of 15k or less, there is a very limited selection of cars I can go with if I want new. So far I have looked at the following cars: Honda Fit 2009, Mini Cooper 2007, Mazda 3 2008, Toyota Prius 2007, Ford Focus 2009. All these cars come in around 15k and have decent options. I have narrowed the searched down to the Mini for Focus. They seem to give me the most bang for my buck, are small, and fuel efficient.



In researching my car purchase it seems like there are going to be many more cars in the small, fuel efficient category in the next few years. We just have to be patient. Many big car companies are finally bringing cars here that have been successful in Europe. For example, in June Ford will launch the Fiesta which has been a big hit in Europe. It's sad to realize but greed took over innovation in the American car industry. Car quality and variety slipped. However, we seem to be on our way back up.



For now it will be a Mini or a Focus. I'll update this post when I make my final purchase. Hopefully soon.