Comment by lnsru
17 days ago
I got that $50k automobile. And it’s absolutely worth it. It has warranty and I don’t need to spent few hours every month fixing things, that shouldn’t break. Land Cruiser is bad example because of very good build quality and excellent durability. I don’t know how it’s in US, but pretty much everywhere else Land Cruiser is luxury. I personally pay gladly additional 200€ in a month to not to do 4-6 hours chores.
But yeah, the food delivery is expensive. Never do this. Try to teach the young guys in the office, that cooking is not rocket science. 3 smallish pieces of okayish meat cost 5€, add some rice. Grab paprika, tomato or cucumber and you have super healthy 3€ meal. Instead of 7-10€ microwave crap from supermarket.
Financial literacy should be a topic in school. Repeated every couple years going from simple budget planning to mortgages, stock market and exotic derivatives. Plus a course about all the scams and basic computer security. Heck we even modeled back then strategies of fake company before graduation. But that was special school.
The "50k automobile" sounds like almost an aside in this conversation, but it's still bothering me.
I know there are reasons that new car prices have gone up so much in recent years, but is $50k still "reasonable" in the context of a financial literacy conversation? I too ended up going down the path of buying new cars when I became an adult, partially due to having no car repair education (something I only gained on my own later in life), partially due to living in apartments with no place to work on them early in my career, but mainly due to the incredible pressure to be able to get to work reliably in a society without adequate public transit.
But my new cars cost more like $18k (2009), $26k (2014), and $31k (2019). Each felt like a luxury at the time, having grown up with used cars generally 15-20 years older than the year we drove them in. Is $50k not still a good $20k more than a base model Camry? It sure still sounds like a luxury to me.
My BMW 328xi had tired automatic gearbox. Only Tesla wanted to have it for trade in, because the gearbox was still working more or less normal. No person would buy it in such shape, trade-in elsewhere didn’t work either. I was also driving a lot in that time. 110€ weekly gas bill. And Tesla had a small discount plus zero interest offer at the time. I signed for it and got model y long range. My first new car in whole life.
My alternatives were dire: repair the gearbox for 8k. Ditch bmw and get some used vehicle for 25k. Take some other new vehicle with 6-8% interest rate. Or buy some 15 year old crap car and spend tons of money repairing it.
Fast forward to today: I forgot broken bmw, got used to comfy, fast family car. My current workplace offers free electricity as a benefit, so I use supercharger only few times a year on vacation. Financially it looks good: gas and repair costs are gone.
I can tell only one thing: each buy or not to buy decision is very individual. If bmw wouldn’t start falling apart after 80k miles I would keep it as long as I can. I also wouldn’t buy Tesla in first place if somebody else would buy bmw. I wouldn’t need a car at all if I had no relative to care for 30 miles away.
I buy a half-cow from a rancher every 6-7 months. I prepare all of my meals and all of my son's meals. I cook fresh meals for us six nights per week and take my lunch to work daily.
We eat out exactly once per week, and it's always the same place. It has counter service, so no tipping is expected.
It's the only restaurant in the area that prepares a meal better than I can at home. I know the owner, and we text each other occasionally and lift together at the same gym.
I've only had one issue at his restaurant, which was resolved by simply calling him.
My Land Cruiser costs me <$3k per year to own. That includes gas, insurance, and maintenance parts. I spent fewer than five hours on yearly maintenance for the four years I've owned it. The only exception was last year when I had to do the timing service, and that repair alone took me ~11 hours. It was much cheaper than the $2600 the import shop wanted for the repair.
I bought it because the 100 Series is probably the most reliable vehicle ever.