Vehicles under $15k are 1.6% of the market, and their share of the market has dropped over 90% since 2019. The old advice that you can get a beater and drive it in to the ground for $5k hasn't been true for years but it still seems pervasive in personal finance spaces.
I can tell by your writing that you’re a rational person and you’ve obviously thought about things. But…I’m not sure we’re arguing about the same thing.
The point is that you would previously be able to buy a new car for say $20k or a used one for $5k. The used one might drive nearly as well as the new one, if properly maintained. So you were “saving” $15k.
The idea that brand new items can lose value to their “steady-state” value (imagine a graph that sharply descends in the first year) isn’t an absurd one.
That said, I understand that some people might value that “new feeling” and want to pay that $15k difference. Or might value their time and troubles in potentially dealing with the issues of a used car.
Of course, people are raising the issue that the market might have changed recently. I don’t really follow the pricing of new cars. I remember a few years ago hearing that the car industry was in trouble because essentially cars were lasting longer and longer and so they were unable to keep on selling the new models to suckers.
Eh. Not the best article but I appreciate the sentiment.
I certainly agree with it. I think that there’s a level of friendship that I never allow others to crack unless they were bridged in as members when we were young.
All the people I meet now are “acquaintances”. They’re nice, I’m okay to reach out if I need anything, but more often then not they’re the partner of someone else. I smile at them. I tolerate them. I might even have a drink with them. But there’s a distance there that you can’t crack.
It’s like that great 80s movie, “Stand by me”: “I never had any friends later on like the ones when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” youtu.be/l7r-R61W1DQ
Gen Z’s FOMO is driving them to trade more than any other generation ( archive.ph )
It's Almost Impossible To Find A Decent Used Car Under $20,000 ( jalopnik.com )
Vehicles under $15k are 1.6% of the market, and their share of the market has dropped over 90% since 2019. The old advice that you can get a beater and drive it in to the ground for $5k hasn't been true for years but it still seems pervasive in personal finance spaces.
Why men lose all their friends in midlife ( www.telegraph.co.uk )