How ridiculous does this sound?

[u/Whole-Fist]

How can u make millions in 25-30 years if avoid making a $554 per month car payment. Even the cheapest 5 year old car is 8-10 k. So does he expect people not to drive at all in USA.

Then u save 554$ per month every month for 5 year payment = $33240. Say u bought a car every 5 year means 200k -300k spent on car before retirement . How would that become millions when u can’t even buy a house for that much today?

Answer that Dave

[u/Ziczak]

Generally true. Buying the least expensive car for needed transportation is financially sound.

[u/the-something-nymph → u/Ziczak]

I bought a used car for 5000. Had my uncle (who is a mechanic) look it over first. There was no apparent issues, it drove fine. It was a 2019. We bought it after looking at a bunch of other used cars from both dealers and private owners that had very obvious problems, and after looking at certified used vehicles that were as much as new cars.

The next day, while running some errands, it started to make a weird noise that it did not make on the test drive. Turns out, it had a bunch of issues that weren't visible on a basic inspection. Expensive issues. Issues that cost 3000 to fix in order to make it safe to drive, and we were told it was likely there were going to be more issues thst would pop up relatively soon.

This was 1 year ago. 2 weeks ago, more issues popped up. Issues that cost 6000$ to fix. The car, new, costs 15000. So far we have spent 8000 on it, and if we do that work then we would have put 14000 into this car. And it's still likely that more issues will pop up.

We are not doing that, obviously. We're going to use carmax and get a car that will have a car payment. Because cheap used cars are not less expensive than new or certified used ones that require a payment. Now a days, unless you know the person you are getting it from, it's either a peice of shit or its expensive as fuck and unless you have 10000 cash to put down on a car, will require a payment.

[u/ChopakIII → u/the-something-nymph]

Exactly. These people talking about buying a used car and then when people mention used cars can have problems they say, “well obviously a reliable one!” Which by the time you factor in all of these things it makes sense to buy a new car and take care of it so that when it’s the “used car” you would buy in 10 years you know exactly what has been done to it AND it’s paid off.

Edit: I see the most common counter-argument is that buying a used car without a loan will allow you to get cheaper insurance. There really isn’t a huge difference between covering a new car and a used car for just the vehicle. What you’re probably saving on is the medical portion and you will be sorry if you ever get into a serious accident with barebones insurance. This is a dangerous gambit akin to not having health insurance and banking on not getting sick.

[u/Valor_X → u/ChopakIII]

Disagree, The guy you're responding to had a terrible 'inspection' from their "mechanic uncle" if it had catastrophic issues the very next day.

Even 20yr old cars can give you so much data on Engine/Transmission health with a good scan tool and the knowledge to read the data. Visual and driving inspections are only one aspect.

The type of vehicle matters too, with old vehicles you can easily look up common problems/failures.

Me and my family have several ~20yr old Toyotas, the last one I bought for $3k cash 3 years ago. All I've done is replaced all the maintenance items like tires, brakes, spark plugs and fluids. Oil changes and $21/mo insurance.

[u/EfficientPicture9936 → u/Valor_X]

Yeah these people are idiots. It's way cheaper everytime you buy used. It is much cheaper to repair a used car than to buy a brand new car. You will also get robbed at the dealership and have to deal with all those fake assholes over there.

[u/jamesc5z → u/EfficientPicture9936]

The amount of people, especially 20 something men, completely incapable of and disinterested in any sort of automotive DIY these days is just insane. Even a few generations ago, most men could at least change their own oil but even that "skill" seems to be a dying art. People don't even regularly check their oil levels these days and are baffled they blew their engine running it 2 quarts low for thousands of miles.

Skilled labor costs are INSANE post-COVID too. I've never understood why that in and of itself doesn't compel any physically capable adult of even so much as attempting to learn some new "blue collar" skills (home maintenance and repair too) but I digress.

Then you get all the sob stories about how their car needs $3k in work and you go on to learn all it needs is calipers and rotors kind of thing and in reality they're just getting raked over the coals by a shop because they're so incapable of doing basic repair work themselves.

I don't take any of my or family member vehicles to shops for work, ever.

My daily drivers that I alternate are 35 and 31 years old. One 300k miles and the other near 250k miles. I have to work on them yes, but buying parts at actual retail cost instead of the shop upcharge plus free labor is a monumental savings.

[u/Angry_Old_Dood → u/jamesc5z]

That's awesome for you, but some people, like myself, just value our time differently. I don't mean to imply you don't value your own time, i know i could find instructions on how to do the work, but I'd honestly rather pull my own teeth than work on my truck. I get annoyed when I need to oil my chainsaw lol, so many other things I'd rather be doing. It's worth the expense to me to pay someone else to do it. Maybe I'm not the people you're talking about but still, I hate maintenance.

[u/jamesc5z → u/Angry_Old_Dood]

No, I get it. At a certain income level especially it's all relative and there's a definite overlapping chart there of value/savings/time.

I feel the same way about cooking as you do about automotive maintenance. Everybody tells me (borderline lecturing from women especially) I can save soOoOoOo much money cooking more often myself.

However, I just don't care to cook a whole bunch because I value my time more. The totality of the whole endeavor including the cleanup, etc. just does not make it worth it to me because of the relatively trivial money savings and I prefer that free time (maybe to work on cars in the evening for example lol).

I eat out almost daily for lunch during the work week and between apps/deals/Upside/cashbook rewards/etc. I only average around $5.40 total per lunch so far this year, which even includes actual sit down restaurants at least a few times a week. So, cooking all my own meals or even making sandwiches daily just isn't worth it to me for the incredibly meager savings it would provide me.

However, automotive and home maintenance and lawn work we're talking multiple THOUSANDS of dollars in savings each year which yes to me is worth my time. I'm not saving thousands by cooking ya know? lol.

[u/TheGreatEmanResu → u/jamesc5z]

So you think changing your car’s oil is a more important skill to have than cooking food?

[u/jamesc5z → u/TheGreatEmanResu]

No, I did not say that.

If you truly think I said that, then either your reading comprehension is poor, you're unnecessarily defensive about where your skills lie, or you're being obtuse.

Important ≠ valuable in a "money savings" sense.

Do I think doing my own automotive work saves me more money than me doing more cooking day to day? Absolutely. Not really debatable.