Frustrating look for minivan! Soon to give up :)

As frugal as we are, it's tough to look for a minivan for our growing family. We don't want anything new, that's for sure. That pretty much leaves us with used vehicles, which we don't mind at all.

We dropped into a dealership tonight and saw the incentives that were being dished out. Big incentives to move vehicles off the lot. We asked the salesperson how many people, proportionally were leasing. He said very few. Most paid 'cash'.

Huh? Isn't this a recession? Isn't this the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? ...and people are paying cash for their vehicles?

....not just 5grand, but 30+grand for a vehicle? You have to be kidding!

Anyhow, further probing with the question - "what proportion of those are financing" - tells me the answer. He says that 95+% of people are actually financing the deal and that others are putting it on their lines of credit.

Yikes!

Our family philosophy is to save up for something that depreciates (like a car, or a deck, or another consumable) with cash, and not ever have to tap into a line of credit.

It's weird, the philosophy nowadays. Everyone is buying things like there is no tomorrow. When will it stop?

The shutdown of car factories in conjunction with the Cash for Clunkers program in the US has soaked up all the supply of minivans, and all the incentives, low interest rates, and the hype about the economy recovering has caused buying to become frenzied again. No wonder we can't locate minivans - they're selling like hotcakes!

Our search for a minivan continues, but I think we're going to have to finish looking soon, as we are getting tired! Oh well, the Lord has something good for us in the end.

Where have we looked?
- repossession sales
- new car dealers
- used car dealers
- used car brokers
- have even considered becoming a used car dealer myself....
- lease takeovers
- kijiji
- autotrader
- other provinces, including Ontario, New Brunswick, PEI (we nearly went to see a minivan in PEI, believe it or not, only to find out that the person refuses to get it inspected)

...nothing good so far, but we do have a few leads and a lot of prayer.