Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm financially secure and don't miss the money I've "wasted" on buying and selling of cars over my adult life.
All told I've lost in deperication $163/month every year of my adult life on cars, not a huge loss as I did get utility out of the cars, and each car was bought/sold/traded in for a decent reason save once when I traded in a perfectly good car that suited my needs and bought what can only be called a play toy.
Yet I dwell on those transactions.
The total loss is just a few months salary, and I've certainly spent more on vacations over that same time frame, but I keep dwelling on those events.
Minor first world bs problem I know, but here I am after a long day dwelling on it so I thought I'd see if CD had any advice on moving on from something so trivial.
The only thing you can really do about it is decide you've learned a lesson and not do the same thing again. Add up the amount of money you've lost, and tell yourself that was just the price you paid for an important life's lesson. Dave Ramsey would say you "paid the stupid tax."
I am in the process of retraining myself not to worry about things that don't have a lasting impact. It's a reframing process. You need to consider why something that is essentially, at its heart, really pretty inconsequential in the overall workings of your life is commanding so much of your attention. And what is getting booted in favor of ruminating on things that don't really need to be getting that headspace?
Another thing to train one's self into is not dwelling on things that you can't do anything about, that's done and gone and over with. If you can gain a lesson from something, fine. Take what's to be learned from it, use that information to apply to future actions, and move on. But some things are truly pointless to dwell on.
I'm financially secure and don't miss the money I've "wasted" on buying and selling of cars over my adult life.
All told I've lost in deperication $163/month every year of my adult life on cars, not a huge loss as I did get utility out of the cars, and each car was bought/sold/traded in for a decent reason save once when I traded in a perfectly good car that suited my needs and bought what can only be called a play toy.
Yet I dwell on those transactions.
The total loss is just a few months salary, and I've certainly spent more on vacations over that same time frame, but I keep dwelling on those events.
Minor first world bs problem I know, but here I am after a long day dwelling on it so I thought I'd see if CD had any advice on moving on from something so trivial.
Same issue here.
I purchased a car in 2014 that was at the top end of my price range. I had a car before it that worked just fine, but liked some of the built-in features of this car. The salesman got me hook line and sinker.
The big issue for me is this car payment prevents me from saving money. I am currently living in Oklahoma City and want to move in the worst way, but cannot because of this car payment. I also can't afford to take some classes to get certifications or further my education because all of my money is going towards this car. I also have a limited amount I can spend on hobbies, once again, because I bought this car. I basically live, work, and sleep for this car and will until 2020. Thing is, I don't really even like the car, and was talked into it by a high pressure salesperson. It is my life though.
That's a hard pill to swallow and not a day goes by that I don't get angry about it. Before I purchased the car, I was having doubts about the deal but the salesman was extremely high pressure and wouldn't let me leave the dealership without it. Two years later and two years older, I wish every day I would have just stormed out of that dealership because I knew in my cut the car deal was not good.
I think the question to ask for the OP is if his car payment is preventing him from doing something else with his life he would rather be doing. In my case it is...this car is my prison sentence. In his case, it may just be a financial inconvenience but not really impacting his life. If its the latter, my advice would be to focus on paying the car off and then taking the lessons you learned from this and applying it to future car purchases. Americans are addicted to new cars but they aren't necessary and are in fact one of the worst financial investments a person can make.
I think the OP is unhappy about the choices he made with his cars, or he feels he made foolish mistakes. We all do this though about many things. Some of us have bought homes that we can't enjoy because we can't afford to furnish them properly. Or the monthly payments are higher than we can comfortably afford. Perhaps some of us got suckered into buying a time share that hasn't been great for us. There are a million ways to make mistakes that cost us money.
So, I think the OP should learn from his mistakes and move on mentally. If you fill your mind with other things, you can probably stop filling it with regrets that, by his admission, don't really amount to that much in the grand scheme of things.
How can you help someone? How can you save a little more for the future? How can you advance your career? How can you be a better person? You can dwell on questions like this, and then you won't have time to have so many regrets. You can't remove these thoughts, until you begin to fill your mind with other, constructive thoughts.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
