Reply #7: I can see how those costs might add up, especially if one buys newer cars [View All]

[MADem]

You have my sympathies, but hey, enjoy your jazzy cars while you are young. Everyone has to do it, I guess. It's a rite of passage....remember it fondly. Also, take good care of them--I have one car in storage that still runs, it's a 1966!!!! I may bust it out when one of my other two bites the dust! You could be the old geezer on the block in 2050, driving his same old well-maintained Scion that he's converted to a garbage burner or nuclear power, or what have you!

I got that "new car Jones" out of my system in my youth. Now I am a cheap old fart, and I like a total clunker in good, indeed great, condition with low mileage--helps in an "aggressive driving" situation, too--the mean bastard in the brand new Mercedes SUV WILL back off when you're driving a twenty-plus year old road warrior tank. I have sold the rest of my family on them as well, and we buy them off geezers older than me who've given up their cars at long last, as they go out even less than I do (and thus, cab fare is cheaper) or they rely on the generosity of doting family, as one should as one ages.

It helps to live near geezers, of course, so there's a regular supply of these sorts of vehicles!