On Sep 20, 3:34 pm, "
wrote:
On Sep 20, 9:57 pm, landotter wrote:



On Sep 20, 2:39 pm, Matt O'Toole wrote:

MSN points out why so many Americans are broke: they're spending too much
on their cars:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...onaCar/TheReal...

One more reason to ride a bike!

Or drive an old car. Mine was paid for 15 years ago and still passes
emissions testing with only 5% of allowed nasties. I can't believe the
amount of money people **** away on cars. I can understand wanting a
decent car that's pleasant and reliable--but you can find one of those
for pennies on the dollar used. What I find even crazier are people
that buy houses 40 minutes from work in this town to get 2x the square
footage--but a more miserable lifestyle and tons of pointless
emissions spewed while crawling on the freeway.

There is definitely a "sweet spot" as far as value for money goes in
used cars. A good used car can be orders of magnitude cheaper to run
per distance than a new car. Even a crappy one is cheaper. And not all
old cars suck either.

My local craigslist has several German and Japanese cars for $2K that
look to have plenty of life left in them. $5K gets you a ten year old
luxury car. Have it detailed and install a satellite radio for less
than the price of a Kia.



More than the folks who commute "only" 40 minutes in a new car to some
suburb, I wonder about the folks who live in dangerous slums but chose
to **** away huge amounts of money on new cars with expensive
accessories presumably with a high interest credit-risk type loan.

While appalling, it's understandable to want a status object when
you've been living in poverty and a few more coppers his the coffer.
It's stupid, but not shocking. In my neighborhood, I'm known as that
crazy bike guy--because the rednecks think that spending more than
$100 on a Walmart Bike is something incomprehensible. "Who does he
think he IS!?"