Originally Posted by Imp4
Originally Posted by supton
Originally Posted by Imp4
By thinking about all the hours I'd have to work to pay for the darn thing.
I'm salaried and because I short-changed my 401k for so long, I'm stuck working for about another 25 years. After being gone from home for 11 hours (2hr commute + 8hr day + 1hr lunch), and then I think about putting in extra time at home on projects... I really don't feel like "having" to fix my beater (again).
Short changing your 401k and buying new cars is the perfect plan to ensure that you work 'til you're 70....
Change your behaviors and you change your life.
Good luck!!!
Point taken. But. My 401k growth (on its own) has hit the point where it equals what I could add. It'd still grow quite nicely if I cut back my contribution to the amount that gets me all the "free" money from work.
Originally Posted by Railrust
Good thread, I developed one very similar to it last year.
Here's the thing, you just get sick of that old car. You itch for something else...then that old car needs some work, you put it off...then it needs more. Then you staring at $4000 in repairs and you think...ok, I've got almost 200,000 miles on this thing, it needs some work, plus it's consuming oil...now is a great time to bail and get that new car! Yay! Then you end up spending 4 grand on sales and excise tax. Then you insurance goes up. Then you get another $700 dollar excise tax bill next year (after that new car smell has faded away).
Now you're two years into this thing...it's got a few scratches now, a couple unexpected repairs of its own (and you're still shelling out $500-$600 excise tax bills). The payments are getting real old. You look in the classifieds and the vehicle you paid 40k for is selling for 26k...I just lost $14,000 grand! And yeah I like the car, but I don't really love it. Heck, I'm not even sure it's all that much better than my old one that needed $4,000 in repairs! And now my "new" one needs some of those very same repairs. And I'm getting sick of counting all the new scratches and dings people put into the doors while I'm food shopping. Ugh.
And hopefully that^^^^^ will keep me from selling my "new" truck I bought a year and a half ago...to go out and buy that "new" truck...which won't be "new" five seconds after I drive off the lot.
I was looking at $4k in repairs on my last car... but it had over 300k and there wasn't many VW diesel mechanics around. And I had dropped $4k into two years prior. My truck I've had for six years but it just doesn't fit my needs, and is 10 years old. I can't figure out my car, I've only had that for 3 years now (but it's 21 years old) so why would I want to trade out?
"Everyone" on this board insists that an automatic is toast after 150k and all mine are past that. That worries me! [Argues against new I know.]
I have been trying to buy and hold as long as possible, but there's a point where one hits where it might be--if not cheaper then wiser--to move on.