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im not sure where the term " wasteful takes over....
reminds me of the saying " anyone who drives slower than me is a jerk and anyone who drives faster than me is dangerious and an idiot.
personally i would rather buy the vehicle i perceive as offering the best value in the price range i want to spend. i dont consider that wasteful because i didnt buy a honda fit..
i remember owning cars as a kid that cost less than a set of tires and even though those cars got me around i would never want to drive anything like them again.
And compared to a $100,000 car, the $50,000 car is a bargain. I do not disagree with you. My point had to do with the topic of this thread - saving money as it relates to car ownership. If you read my post carefully, you will see that I think it's O.K. to buy any car you wish, provided you can afford it. For me personally, the term "wasteful" takes over at the point at which we go beyond comfortable, reliable, clean transportation - yes, a Honda Fit or similar. But I do not intend that use of "wasteful" to be a criticism. I myself am wasteful, as I purchased a new Mazda Speed 3 (the poor man's performance car - turbocharged with tricked out suspension) four years ago for between 26K and 27K. I just love driving for its own sake - cornering, acceleration, and stopping constitute performance. For me, that car was worth every penny in the pure joy I get from it. But remember, this is a thread about cars and saving money, and remember the context: I was rebutting the notion that getting rid of a second car is necessarily a significant money saver.
My, aren't there any single-person households in areas with little or no public transport? I live on a commuter train line to the city. I work off-shifts and weekends/holidays, and the commuter train is clearly designed for M-F, day work. A co-worker of mine tried to live out this way because the rent was much cheaper than closer to town, and it took her over two hours to go each way.
I have owned two cars in the last 20 years and have been car-dependent for 19 of them. The first was a Mazda 323, got 170,000 miles out of it, now a Toyota Matrix with nine years and 100,000 on it. It has always been my plan to buy an entry-level Japanese car new, that is cheap to buy, cheap to run, and runs like iron. So far the Matrix is doing me just fine, and it's not even the entry-level (a homeowner can use a hatchback wagon). If one lives alone in a one-car household, the car has to be reliable/safe, no beaters.
Wow, it costs a lot more to own a house than it does a car, even if you have no debt for either. The cost to own a second car is but a fraction of what it costs to own a second house. Personally, I'd rather have a modest house and a nice BMW than drive a clunker and own two houses.
We have 7 cars (5 drivers going on 6). One car I do not drive i winter, one is basically a toy. They do not cost much. All are paid off. Some have only liability insurance. Insurance for extra cars is cheap, especially when the number of cars is greater than the number of drivers. I take the insurance off one car for part of the year, since I do not drive it in the winter.
Gas is costly depending on the usage. If you are using the car a lot, then you spend a lot on gas, but you need the car. If you are not using the car then you do not spend anything on gas. The article is only addressing a car that you do not really need daily. In which case you use virutally no gas. The same is true of maintainance. If you do nto use the car much, it will nto need a lot of maintenance.
Some extra cars acaully add economic benefit. We have seven family members. We have big cars and small cars. If we go somewhere with few people we can take a small car and reduce gas usage. If we all go somewhere, we can take a big car and save even more on gas (over taking two or three seperate cars to the same place). If we need to haul things we can make one trip in a truck instead of five trips with a car. Again that saves money. If a car breaks or needs maintenance, we can often take a spare car and let the broken one sit until I or my son can get to it to DIY repair. Without a spare, we would have to take it to the shop for an immediate fix and rent a car until it is done. When my summer car goes back into use, we can park one of the others to do a major repair like a valve job, or transmission replacement. It may take all summer ot get it done, but we can take theinsuracne off it, spend nothing on gas or maintenance and then have it back in shape again in the fall and save thousands on labor.
I agree with you 100%. If I could afford to lease or finance a luxury car, I would be living in a better neighborhood.
My guess would be that if you just increased your cashflow, you would be living in a better neighborhood.
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