To be fair, there is nothing wrong with buying new stuff. If you can afford it. The stigma that you are entitled to a new whatever "because you work so hard" or [insert random excuse here] is complete BS however. If you really were working that hard, why on earth would you repeatedly commit financial suicide completely negating the reasons that you are working your azz off?
I struggled with that earlier this year. I wanted a new truck. I really, really wanted a new truck! I even had the green light from my wife and went so far as to test drive some and decided exactly what I wanted. Then I sat down on Excel and looked at our budget and ran how much I'd be paying per month after the down payment, and I couldn't justify it even with a 1.99% loan. If we could afford $550 out of our budget every month on a truck payment, we could also afford $50 out of the budget on parts to keep my old truck running and then $500 per month on upgrading the house without getting a HELOC. So I'm keeping the truck and finishing the basement. We might re-assess things next summer when the 2016 models are a year old, but for now the house makes more sense.
Something serious needs to go wrong before you can really financially justify replacing a vehicle. You could have bought that truck and gone on down the road like many others. But you made a conscious decision to use the funds elsewhere. How many folks replace a vehicle still worth thousands for a repair or maintenance job that will cost several hundred if performed at a shop? I have a family member that replaces their vehicle because it's out of warranty. But if you can pay cash, not dip into any emergency fund savings, and want to replace the vehicle, then there's not much reason to second guess yourself.
Yup, seen that happen many times...I had a friend trade his Caravan off on a PT Cruiser when the Caravan trans went out. I told him he was nuts...just the sales tax on the PT would have almost paid for the Caravan trans repair. Bottom line, they really wanted the PT and this was their way of justifying the purchase...even though they really couldn't afford it.
Perhaps you should read this: Woodstock Soapstone Co. Blog: Veteran Profile: The Wonders of Willy Jane There is a little ball of fire! She is good at more than welding too. A great employee!
You are wise beyond your years. The vast majority do not understand that, even the elderly, only those who unfortunately who experience have to experience it. We drove old trucks for years, most would call them beater trucks, hey, they got us to and from work, it enabled us to put a 2200sq ft addition onto our 880sq ft house back in the day. Here is one we kept, almost 400k on the odometer (we have flipped the odometer 3 times, not enough digits for over 100K miles lol). Pic is from a couple days ago.
I wish I could get by on older vehicles. A broke down vehicle cost me a job once or twice. Almost cost me a job after driving 1500 miles and breaking down in he middle of South Dakota. That was actually a truck less than a year old. The other was a truck 4 years old. My job situation is way different than 90% of people's any way. What other group of people will drive 2k miles or farther and not know if they have a job til they pass a welding test.
I'm fairly certain my transmission is going to die on me. It had an issue when it hit 100k miles where coolant mixed with the transmission fluid. I caught it after driving it like that for probably a couple thousand miles and flushed things out, but now I'm at 178k but it's starting to slip between 3rd and 4th so I think damage was done. That was my original reason for justifying a new truck. But I do really like this truck (I've had it 10 years, I used to get bored of trucks and flip them every 2 years), so even if I have to rebuild or drop in a remanufactured tranny and it costs me $2500 and the cost of a rental for a week, that's still WAY less than a full year of payments would be.
Just like firewood. I have enough piled up now to only cut when I want to...not because I have to...and can be very picky about what I cut. I want to have a big enough pile of $ that I can work on my own terms....not anyone elses. I will work forever...doing exactly what I want to do...even if I don't get paid for it. I can barely sit still for 10 minutes...I could never not work at something.
