That is a personal decision. We leased a car for wife, but I bought a used trailblazer for boat towing. Going to get a trailer hitch on the 2017 Rav4 and buy it out at the end of lease and buy a new car for the wife. 03 trailblazer rear ended, not much damage unlike the guy who hit me, his car was totalled and airbags deployed. Wife does not want to do the 1000 mile round trip 2x a year a year in the trailblazer, and being 17 years old with 200k miles I was starting to consider options, and it seems stupid to buy a new truck for that purpose. If Uhaul rented pickups north of the twin cities that would be my go to. So I get the rav4 and buy her an under $20,000 sedan. There is not a perfect answer for everyone, used car prices make new my preference, especially with 0% financing and $6500 push pull or drag trade in.
There’s a little book titled :“Die Broke and Stiff the Undertaker” No guide as to how to time all this, however.
Lol, in my “final instructions”, I tell my wife that’s the only bill she’ll need to pay, she has no responsibility for anything else.
What’s a red pen?
Red Pen - What teachers use to mark incorrect spelling or word usage . And why some people get so upset when it is pointed out to them is beyond me .
how would you know why someone is upset, if they’re here for the first time and someone’s already criticizing their spelling and grammar?
I would never criticize spelling or grammar as I onley have a 5th grade education and make many mistake’s my self the onley thing that realy bother’s me and I never say anything is one of VOLVO-70’s peeve’s break’s and brake’s.
A good friend who died unexpectedly recently had a similar philosophy. When he retired he tried to maximize his current wealth by selling all that he could, leasing cars, and choosing single life payments from his pension. That means that instead of taking a smaller amount each month that would pay the survivor too for life, he took a larger amount that would pay just him. I advised for deferring some of the gratification for the sake of the spouse but he said if he had a problem he’d just do a reverse mortgage. So now the wife will have her income cut in half for the next 20-30 years. I just hope she’ll be able to maintain a comfortable standard of living without moving in with the kids.
We never know who will be the first to walk the path of souls but we need to be careful to provide for many different contingencies. Also gotta remember it can take a little money to close out estates and a lot of those debts cannot be sheltered from the estate. My wife would actually do better if I walk that path first except for the grass cutting and snow removal.
My wife and I have maintained separate finances since we married over 40 years ago. She doesn’t need my money, not do I need hers. I’ve been judgement proof for 30 years, so I can afford to die broke.
Just saying there are kids watching this program that may not benefit in life by following this philosophy. If you max out credit cards and don’t eventually pay them, someone else does. No free ride (no pun intended).
Bud with terminal cancer got a refinance loan with death insurance a few years ago, and fixed up the house, new windows and doors, he is on hospice now, not sure what is going on with his truck lease.
I definitely wouldn’t recommend the life I’ve led to others. It’s been lots of adventures, but also lots of work and plenty of sleepless nights.
As many people above have commented, it depends. When I last looked several years ago, all the advice compared getting a new car every 3 years vs getting a 3 year old car and keeping it several years, Well, of course that comes out against the new car because you’re comparing to the most expensive way to own a car.
When I compared the cost of buying a new car and keeping it for 10 years vs getting a 3 year old car and keeping it for either of 7 or 10 years the difference dropped dramatically to the point that it was nearly a wash in many cases. New cars have a ‘honeymoon’ period where you don’t have much/any maintenance or repairs to worry about. you also have a warranty that covers repairs. Then there are other factors - if you finance the car you can often get a better loan rate on a new car than a used one, saving interest. Many people prefer driving new(er) cars, so having a new car is worth something to them. For me, reliability is important, so once a car stops being reliable it’s almost worthless to me.
I can go on with the intangible costs/benefits but you get the picture. Everyone has to figure out what’s important to them and make their own decision, but there are costs and benefits beyond the sticker on the car.
The rules for whether to buy new or used have changed in my 59 years of owning cars. Back in the early 1960s, it made more sense to buy a new VW Beetle as opposed to a used VW Beetle because the VW depreciated slowly. Tom McCahill noted in his book which he wrote back in the early 1960s that good buys could be found in used cars that were high priced models when new. He said he had two friends who had purchased new cars four years earlier. One purchased a Cadillac and the other a VW. When the cars were four years old, with about the same number of miles on the odometer, and in equivalent condition, both cars were worth the same amount of money even though the Cadillac cost over three times as much as the VW when both cars were new.
One factor in the decision as to whether to buy new or used is how the car is to be used. If the car is to be used only locally and driven less than 10,000 miles a year, it may make sense to buy a used car. On the other hand, an over the road salesman who drives 25,000 miles a year may be better off with a new car. A new car has new tires, a new battery, and even new wiper blades.
I was in a discussion with two other people my age, a retired colleague and a single woman. My male colleague has a late model Cadillac, the single woman has a Nissan Versa and I have a Toyota Sienna. My friend with the Cadillac said he would like to have a Mercedes Benz. My female friend said she would like to have a Prius. She had owned a Prius, but when the main battery went bad, she decided to get rid of the car. My friend with the Cadillac had to have a headlight replaced and it was a $300 job. My friend who had owned the Prius spent almost as much to have a headlight replaced. When one of them asked me what kind of car I would like to own, my answer was a Checker. Back in 1965, I came within $200 of buying a Checker. A fender could be replaced in half an hour. Repairs were fast and comparatively inexpensive. The Checker had jump seats which would be handy when my musician friends pile in to go to gigs.
I think the best purchase I made in recent times was a 2006 Chevrolet Uplander minivan. I bought it in 2006 as a GM “program” car (whatever that means). It had 15,000 on the odometer. I paid a little over $15,000 for the Uplander. My son now has the Uplander and it now has traveled 250,000 miles with only routine maintenance. I paid $28000 for a new Toyota Sienna in 2017. The Uplander was really a better bargain in terms of transportation.
On the other hand, I missed out on a real bargain. In 1965, I bought a bottom of the line 1965 Rambler Classic 550 with 7000 miles on the odometer for $1750. Two months later, my parents bought a house from a couple who were moving to Florida. They had two cars and wanted to sell a 1963 bottom of the line Ford Fairlane (an intermediate size car like the Rambler I had purchased) for $1000. The Fairlane only had 10,000 miles on the odometer. Now $750 was a chunk of change back in 1965. I would have been money ahead with the Fairlane.
Sorry for not just going to bed tonight but me thinks you jest. If not, or for others, a little story from last weekend. We had a little issue to take care of Saturday and called a guy out. When he came to our house he looked at my wife and said “I know you”. My wife was an English teacher and had him in school. He said reading was his big problem and never could do well but he has someone that does his reading for him now. The more we talked we found out he had built a business covering five states and doing very well. He also has been in over 40 movies as a stunt person. Good family, very down to earth, successful, but can’t read very well. Claims my wife’s encouragement helped him through. Took care of our issue pronto. Just saying people have different talents and disabilities but still have much to offer.
This for all the replies on this topic. So people say that if you buy brand new and keep for a long time, or you buy a few years old and keep for a long time, that in the end it’s about the same cost? Does anyone have any research or studies on this? Would be great if you can financially argue it makes sense to buy brand new. I’m talking about paying cash for brand new, or paying cash for used. So you can remove the loan from the equation. Not sure if it would make a difference though.
This comes under the heading ( Just do what you are comfortable with ) A study like that would have so many variables to be almost worthless.
The math isn’t hard.
Buy a 3 year old car with 35K on the odo for 50% of the cost of new (lets say new was $40K and drive it 200K. Assume you need to spend $1000 for maintenance items the new car doesn’t need. Cost per mile is $21,000/165,000 = 12.7 cents a mile.
Now compare to new at full cost for 200K. Sure you drive the car for 3 more years but the cost per mile is $40,000/200,000 = 20 cents a mile.
I am assuming exactly the same service cost in the last 165K miles of driving so the cost washes out.
To match that 20 cents a mile for a 3 year old car, you’d have to buy the used car for $32,000. That is an unrealistic price for any 3 year old car originally sold for $40K
But throw in the fact that this site gets many people coming here that have bought used vehicles that have turned out to be a not so good vehicle.
My research is based on a million and a half miles over 40 years but do what you want. It’s not always about the money but what you would like to do. Everyone should buy at least one new car in their life.