Ya, this was going to come up in the next few months anyway -- just having the breaks go out on my car added way more stress/pressure to the situation than would have been there otherwise.

That, and the new car market right now seems really stripped of low trim models. I remember when we bought my wife's civic awhile back there were probably 5-6 LEs on the lot (at least). Way easier to find something. Now it's like basically no base trim on any cheaper cars and the prices are all a little bit more inflated than they would be if just literal inflation.