dawg what do you mean you're paying 25k for a used skoda kodiaq that is neither fun nor really practical for hauling people or stuff. you've got a 5km commute. the public transport is bad but it's not "spend 15k more every few years to not have to take the bus for a week while your slightly older car is in the shop" bad. What the fuck.

And that's carbrain costs, that doesn't even include like biweekly washes or the yearly inspection because they're "trying to preserve value". Dawg just buy a perfectly serviceable toyota aygo for like 8k and run that fucker in the ground. What do you mean you pay like 400€ a month for 60 months at 7% APR before the thing is even insured or moved a single meter.

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[–] Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People spend way too much on cars. Now a days I barely drive my personal vehicle but even back when I drove my own vehicle regularly the most I ever spent on a vehicle was $3k. Usually I just bought a shitbox from an impound lot or something and drove it until the rust got bad enough that it wasn't worth fixing. Cheap vehicles can have maintenance issues but honestly my old shitboxes always seemed to have way fewer major issues than the people I knew who bought $25k vehicles crammed with perpetually failing sensors and proprietary BS which you can't even fix on your own. Not to mention, parts are dirt cheap for old cars.

It doesn't make any sense to me to take out a loan for an asset which will depreciate faster than you're paying off the balance and which could turn in to a pile of scrap with no notice just due to a spooked deer or similar. Yeah, there's insurance, but having to pay for full coverage insurance is yet another monumental expense that comes with having an expensive car.

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think a large part of this is that the car is so, so standard people don't think about the costs anymore. Like every car costs already gets amalgated into "car cost, inevitable" even as fuel prices rise and then everything more complex than that is right out of the window.

As in: Love to spend like 5k extra every year to save about ~20 hours per year of added commute time, maybe, while I make 25 eurobucks an hour.

[–] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago

legitimately, not being on the typical update-a-car plan (and instead buying and keeping the same old shitbox running for 15+ years, limiting my driving range) allowed me to save up enough over several of those years to get into a realistic mortgage, giving me an appreciating asset. it wasn't just not trading up, but if i had done that, none of my other discipline would have mattered.

cars and car brain are a major impediment to avoiding being financially screwed.