Comment by coryfklein

I'm a married father of 3 with 1/4 acre of property. I did fine without a truck for years, but I bought an old pickup for $5k last year as our second family vehicle.

You can certainly make do with a smaller vehicle, but there are these occasional things that make having a truck suuuuper convenient. Some personal examples from the last year:

* Needed to top dress my lawn and it only takes 3 loads of soil from IFA to cover my 1/4 acre

* My father (who lives very close) bought a boat knowing he could use my truck to haul it when necessary. And yes, he talked to me about it first, and my family gets to use it whenever we want.

* I built a treehouse in this giant willow in my front yard and could not have hauled the lumber or fireman's pole without a truck

* With 5 people in the family we get huge Costco runs regularly, these are moderately easier to haul in the back of the truck.

* I get social capital when bringing my truck to any family or friend moving parties

* Used it to haul lumber, tools, and people when the extended family participated in our family cabin area's work day

* Hauled my father inlaw's motorcycle+ATV trailer on a family outing

IMO not everyone needs one, but in a community or geographically close family it is always nice to have that person you can call to borrow their truck, and if you're the one that has the truck then you get social capital when lending it and you also don't have to borrow one yourself.

For us since it's a second vehicle it does sit idle most of the time while we use the minivan for typical travel needs. But I have space to park it, and the truck obviously isn't wasting gas when we're not using it. And since we paid cash and it was cheap, there's just not much of a downside to keeping it around.