My biggest purchase

The following question comes from Mizfit:

What is the most expensive single item you’ve ever bought?

was this a necessity, i.e. car and could you have bought one that was less expensive but the want factor overuled the need factor. gimme details!!!

My most expensive purchase would probably be my current car, a 2001 Mercury Sable. I bought it in 2004. When I purchased it, its previous owner had put a mere 11,000 miles on it, making the asking price (no, I won’t tell you what it was) amazingly low.

To be honest, I don’t think I could’ve gotten a different car at a better price, at least not without sacrificing quality. Of course, there was also the fact that it had cruise control (an absolute necessity in my mind), A/C (pretty important), and a radio head that supported a six-CD changer. (Unfortuantely, I had to go to a third party dealer to buy the changer and have it installed, but that was okay.) It’s also a rather roomy car, which is important to a big guy like me.

Of course, there was one odd feature I thought was silly. The car’s climate control system has a digital thermostat. This means that rather than playing with a lever until the cabin temperature is comfortable, I just hit a button until the dash dislays “73” (as in degrees Farenheit) and the car does the rest. When I first bought the car, I thought this was a silly feature and would never consider it a selling point, let alone a “must have.” After almost four years, I still consider it a “must have feature,” but I admit I’ve found more value in it.

So that’s my biggest purchase in a nutshell.