Mazda3. If you ever expect to haul six people, Mazda5 (basically the same, with three rows of seats).

If this is too rich for your blood, look at a Hyundai Elantra.

I rented a Mazda 5 for a weekend, several months ago.
The driver's seat was so uncomfortable, it was literally
painful after fifteen minutes. None of the good points matter.

I bought a Toyota Matrix XR with sunroof, and 6 CD player
(some sport package or other) and upgraded alarm for
$18K out the door (internet fleet dept.) for my wife to use
for our business. She uses it for package delivery type stuff
and gets 36 MPG. She would like more performance (it's
better than Mazda 5, BTW), but she loves that 36 MPG.
It carries a LOT of crap. We use it the foothills of Southern
California. We haven't used it in the mountains.

Didn't Prius get recalled for a software glitch that caused
stalls on the freeway? Ouch!

The Hyundai Tucson looks useful.

-Bob
I don't have a car, I have a motor pool.

My daughter had a Matrix; she thought it was at least somewhat wonderful, but she complained about the lack of space. (I suspect it was a complaint by her child about the lack of space.)

The Tucson does look pretty useful, though I have no experience with any Hyundai SUV or crossover.

I would double-check with those raffles first. You don't want to be stuck with THREE new cars!

I think Ford should give you a Ford Fusion to go along with their Platinum Blogad. You could post about it every week. Your readers could give Ford advice, like to sell Jaguar to the Chinese for $1.888 Billion. Got to stick with the lucky numbers. They can talk you down to $1.168 Billion--the road of prosperity for everyone. The Chinese know what I mean, LMA.

The raffles didn't work out. We're going to have to get our cars the old-fashioned way--by stealing them.

But I still want to get good value for my lack of money . . .

Miss Attila,
If indeed your finances are that tight, perhaps you should
consider a scheme whereby someone will pay you to take
over their leased vehicle?
There are several websites devoted to such, and some
discussion about it elsewhere.

Also, slightly used vehicles in very good condition are
available at autotrader.com. I used to buy one or two
year old vehicles for my business, with mostly good
experience.

-Bob