And yet, if you were to perform a detailed analysis of those people’s monthly spending, im sure that you would find that many of them spend money on alcohol, tobacco, the latest Iphone, tattoos, or other crap that is a lot less important than maintaining reliable transportation.
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+1
But, you forgot to include lottery tickets and online sports gambling. 
Those of us who consistently eschew all of that… crap… have few if any money worries, even in retirement.
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I was brought up hearing that "you dont spend a dime on luxuries until you have all the necessities covered. Luxuries were defined as anything you don’t need to survive.
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"old_mopar_guy,
Luxuries were defined as anything you don’t **needs
In my house it was the needs that would override the wants.
Geeze you guys. Talk about stereotyping. I buy one bottle of shampaine a year. Last hard stuff I bought was at the px in 1970. Still got it. No tattoos. No debt. Lots of cash. So if I want to spend a night at the casino to support the Indians what’s it to ya. I don’t buy lottery tickets unless it’s over a million but in Minnesota it goes for education anyway.
I’ve known a lot of people without much money and I’d have to say I’d rather be among them than the people that judge them. The kind that actually hunt and fish and eat what they kill.
text**
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Not one of my 60’s tv favorite shows, but one of the Andy Griffith tv show episodes I recently watched was an interesting conversation between young Opie and father about poor vs rich issues. Opie decided a poor migrant in town living in a shanty deserved a break, and took the family’s home-made apple pie to him. Opie’s explanation: “That’s what Robbin Hood does, takes from rich and gives to poor!”. Issue never entirely resolved of course, but turns out migrant preferred the no-job shanty lifestyle is all. Opie decided while giving to poor is worthwhile, stealing isn’t.
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I have no idea what other people spend their money on, and it’s really not my business or concern. I don’t buy or use any of these things, and try to keep costs down as much as possible in order to save for retirement.
All I know is that with a decent job, making decent money for where I live, I am feeling the squeeze of inflation, though I am at least insulated from the skyrocketing cost of rent, since I own my home. To be honest, if I did not already own a house, I could not afford to buy or even rent one now in this region, and would have to uproot my family and move away. I do not have any other debts beside the mortgage, which is about $1k per month, and a similar house would now rent for about $1600-1800 per month.
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Well since I make sure the family has safe reliable transportation I buy my gin and Pall Malls as I see fit! 
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Well another story then I’ll drop it and check my tires. I did a Boy Scout fund raising presentation one year. The theme for the indianhead council was ordinary hero’s. People going about their lives not being noticed but doing heroic things. Like a lot of the mechanics and nurses etc. I got done and passed the hat. I noticed one single mother digging in her purse and contributing change. An insurance agent wrote a check for one or two thousand I don’t remember. I mentioned to wife later about the lady putting in change, and she said do you know who that was? It was all the money she had. Later on I had to deliver the grand prize water color painting to the insurance agent but the lady emptying her purse with change deserved it more.
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Yep! That has been my experience dealing with people. I have made some policies to filter this type of person out and it has worked wonders. The pandemic forced the issue to where I had to make these changes for my own sanity and safety. I had already started before but clamped down harder once the stimulus check people came out of the woodwork. They get whatever check and it is a race to blow it as fast as possible. No, you don’t want to go anywhere near a Wal-Mart, grocery store, or gas station during the first week of the month (I stocked up last week). Of course these stores are all packed with people just blowing money as fast as they can on frivolous stuff as mentioned and junk food.
I agree that those operating a dangerous car shouldn’t own one.
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I’ve seen it! A tire worn just like on the inside that developed a leak while parked and had gone flat by the end of the night. The car was a replacement for a previous car that was run out of oil. That car was a newer model that was obtained by trading in an older model of the same car. Newer is better, even if the engine is worn out I guess.
Preventing the from driving on controlled access Interstate highways should do the trick. Thah should create a lot of incentive to get it fixed.
There was a guy in college who grew up in a poor family. He would tell me how his parents would just buy the cheapest junk cars that ran and do NOTHING to maintain them. They would just run until they would quit. I guess $200-500 used to get you a barely running car. Now that would be the price of a scrap car.
Anyway, one story he told me was especially hilarious. His parents bought some old station wagon that was running on like 4 of 8 cylinders. He said it always reeked of unburned gas and the mileage was just terrible of course. Once going on the road, it would just decide to backfire at regular intervals. At first it was incredibly loud and made a nice big flash like a shotgun muzzle blast. Eventually the exhaust system disintegrated from the constant explosions. At this point the blasts became a lot quieter and not as impressive but it would still backfire at regular intervals. He said he would just ride in the rear facing seats and watch and listen to all the backfiring as a kid.
They never added oil and changed it on these junk cars. They just bought them and treated them as disposable. Some would run a month while others would go longer. Any problem that stopped one of these cars from running was reason not to repair it and just buy another one and repeat.
He said some of these $500 cars were not terrible and would stay running a couple of years. I figured if you knew you got a good one it would be wise to put some money into it as it was so cheap to buy but he said they treated them all the same and they all met the same fate.
And how are you going to enforce that?
The driver already has no license, no insurance, and the cars tabs are expired and probably not even registered in their name.
Do you really think that’s going to stop them from driving on the interstate ?
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I see the SNOWMAN is still SPOUTING HIS NONSENSE.
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I can understand an idea like this but really all cars should have some type of minimum safety standards. I once drove a truck with no brakes but it went straight to the shop and left there where I had someone else give me a ride home. Restricting a real beater to roads with a max speed limit of 35 mph might work but do you still want to be on the road with another car that might have failing brakes or a ball joint that is about to collapse?
I could see having completely different colored license plates or something. No pretty colors… Just a drab plan color plate. Maybe this is a better idea for the UTVs and golf carts that people now drive on regular roads. This is legal in some areas but the max speed limit of the road can be no more than 35mph or so. Others are only allowed in slow-speed residential areas while people just do it illegally a lot as well.
Of course people driving an unsafe beater are probably not going to have insurance either. It seems people who do this get a free pass around here and then the insurance rates of everyone else go up. I guess there are too many more serious things for the police to deal with and the jails are full.
A real beater like this is probably best only on the farm or whatever. I once had a Jeep like this that I kept on my property. I planned to fix it up but it was always something costing me money. It had a couple pretty major failures and I parked it. I finally sold or traded it off before I went broke on this piece of junk. JEEP=Just Empty Every Pocket, especially the one I had!
I wouldn’t step foot in a Wal-Mart any week of any month.
Sorry but that is really a bad idea. In Minnesota though there are special plates that begin with wx or something. They are plates for people with mucho restrictions for insurance, dui etc. I’m told. When my boss went blind and kept bouncing his car off the garage wall, he earned a set of those plates. They can be stopped at any time for any reason just to check.
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I bought a couple of cheap tires at WalMart for my 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass that I used mostly for short trips around town. The car was 25 years old and the Walmart tires had been on the car about 5 years. I had a bad vibration when. I drove over 35 mph. I found a wheel weight on the right front wheel was loose and just slipped around the rim. I wondered when I had purchased the tires and rooting through the glove compartment found the invoice and it noted that I had lifetime balancing.
I took the car to Walmart and showed the service managerthe invoice for the tires. He asked how bad was the vibration. I told him I was out on the interstate driving about 80 mph when a Ferrari was passing me. I told him I floored the accelerator and the vibration got so bad at 100 mph that I had to drop back and it was so embarrassing. The service manager looked at the tire with the loose wheel weight, looked at the old car, shook his head and said, “If you are going to race Ferraris, I better balance both front wheels”. The warranty was honoured and it didn’t cost me a cent.
I had to have a new battery in my in-laws Mercury. They were in an assisted living facility and the car wasn’t driven much. I bought the battery at the Walmart where they lived which was 50 miles from our residence. A couple of weeks later, my in-laws asked me to sell the car. We drove the car to our house. The battery died while I was getting ready to sell the car. I jumped the battery and drove down the street half a mile to my local Walmart. I showed them the receipt for the battery. They tested the battery and determined it was defective. They installed a new battery with no charge.
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In July a customer dropped off a car with an engine performance problem. Battery dead so no PCM memory and a tire with steel belts exposed.
I told the service advisor that before I can drive the car, the owner must buy a battery and a tire. The vehicle owner came to the shop to talk to me, insisted that I drive the car to experience the engine performance problem.
I had sent a picture of the tire to the service advisor and now had to show these two dummies the tire in person.
The customer paid for a new tire, battery and the engine repair, about $3,000.
These people are not poor, not without license or insurance, just seem to be oblivious of the condition of their cars and lack trust in the repair shop. For 2022 I have 11 examples of tires like this on my phone.
I hope that by “a tire”, you really meant two matching tires, assuming this is a 2WD car. If one tire is that badly worn, the others must be nearly bald, and you should not mix different types or worn/new tires on the same axle. I am guessing this tire wore out due to alignment/suspension problems?