I decided to wait it out a bit. I put off the decision for about 9 months, and by the time I was ready to buy, I had some more money saved up. So I splurged on this beautiful son of a bitch right here:
Ended up getting a darn good deal from the salesman, who was a friend of my brother. A bit under $24k for a Hyundai Sonata SE with the 2 liter turbo. It goes like stink, and I still get very good (if not quite as good as they claim - about 28mpg avg.) mileage. Almost a year and a half and over 35k miles later, I have absolutely no regrets. The car has been great, and it is definitely comfortable. The surprise bonus from this car vs most of the others I looked at is actually the rear seat. It's huge. Even with the front seats slid all the way back, there is plenty of room for actual adult humans back there. Three of them, even. As far as actual seating space goes, this sucker is at least as spacious as a mid-size SUV. The trunk is deceptively capacious as well.
While I'm nowhere near as fat as I was two years ago (thanks, keto!), I'm still a big man. While the Sonata isn't a subcompact, it's still a fairly small car. I believe I made the right decision.
