Engine life threshold where you are satisfied with longevity?

[Ws6]

I really sabotaged my financial situation buying "expensive vehicles for leisure"- I wasn't able to retire until I was 51.

Tell us how you were doing prior to your inheritance though...

Also, if you did indeed retire before your parents left you their estate, what vocation are you in? I need to look into that, lol!

Yes though, I did enjoy the 500hp rocketship thing in my 20s. So far I feel like it was worth it.

 

[clinebarger]

In the end a lot of people don’t want to be seen in a 10 year old car. They think they’ll look like losers to others.

Driving a 10+ year old car & driving a piece of crap are 2 different things, Been daily driving a 2000 Avalon for over a year.....Runs great & everything works!

 

[ctechbob]

Driving a 10+ year old car & driving a piece of crap are 2 different things, Been daily driving a 2000 Avalon for over a year.....Runs great & everything works!

I agree, my Accord is in excellent mechanical shape, it just looks like something that lived through a riot thanks to Honda's wonderful clearcoat and driving it to work with a duty belt on destroying the drivers seat.

 

[UncleDave]

I really sabotaged my financial situation buying "expensive vehicles for leisure"- I wasn't able to retire until I was 51.

Perhaps you did not.

I'll stick to my statement that that pattern of the poor and middle class acquiring liabilities vs assets tends to be true.

UD

 

[MCompact]

Tell us how you were doing prior to your inheritance though...

Also, if you did indeed retire before your parents left you their estate, what vocation are you in? I need to look into that, lol!

Yes though, I did enjoy the 500hp rocketship thing in my 20s. So far I feel like it was worth it.

I inherited the farm from my father in 1991 at 34; I paid the mortgage off in 2007. I retired in 2008 at 51 as a state court judge. In exchange for early retirement I agreed to work an additional 600 days as a special judge wherever I was needed statewide. I had 10 years to get my 600 days in but I did it in 6. Since then I've worked just for fun- 18 months as a product specialist at a BMW dealer, 12 months as City Attorney for my hometown, and in 2018 I was coerced back into politics and ran for and was elected as the full time felony prosecutor in my county until January 2025. If I'd known how much fun the job was I would have switched hats years ago. In any case, the extra salary funds my wife's remodeling projects as well as my car habit.
At 63 I still have no desire to start buying practical/sensible vehicles.
Maybe in another 2-3 decades.

 

[Ws6]

I inherited the farm from my father in 1991 at 34; I paid the mortgage off in 2007. I retired in 2008 at 51 as a state court judge. In exchange for early retirement I agreed to work an additional 600 days as a special judge wherever I was needed statewide. I had 10 years to get my 600 days in but I did it in 6. Since then I've worked just for fun- 18 months as a product specialist at a BMW dealer, 12 months as City Attorney for my hometown, and in 2018 I was coerced back into politics and ran for and was elected as the full time felony prosecutor in my county until January 2025. If I'd known how much fun the job was I would have switched hats years ago. In any case, the extra salary funds my wife's remodeling projects as well as my car habit.
At 63 I still have no desire to start buying practical/sensible vehicles.
Maybe in another 2-3 decades.

Ah, attorney. I hated the 4 years I had to do in school, so I'm likely not to pursue that. I guess I could pay my estate off in my 50s and retire, but me being 34, myself, it just seems rather distant I suppose.

 

[supton]

I inherited the farm from my father in 1991 at 34; I paid the mortgage off in 2007. I retired in 2008 at 51 as a state court judge. In exchange for early retirement I agreed to work an additional 600 days as a special judge wherever I was needed statewide. I had 10 years to get my 600 days in but I did it in 6. Since then I've worked just for fun- 18 months as a product specialist at a BMW dealer, 12 months as City Attorney for my hometown, and in 2018 I was coerced back into politics and ran for and was elected as the full time felony prosecutor in my county until January 2025. If I'd known how much fun the job was I would have switched hats years ago. In any case, the extra salary funds my wife's remodeling projects as well as my car habit.
At 63 I still have no desire to start buying practical/sensible vehicles.
Maybe in another 2-3 decades.

So you can afford to have nice things, no? So of course you'd have nice or fun cars.

I chased liabilities when I was younger, so now I "have to" chase cost as I get older. Consequences of decisions and all. If I could stay WFH and manage to convince the wife to get a full time job... no doubt I could have a nice car in 10-20 years, once the house is paid off, kids gone and all that.

 

[Ws6]

So you can afford to have nice things, no? So of course you'd have nice or fun cars.

I chased liabilities when I was younger, so now I "have to" chase cost as I get older. Consequences of decisions and all. If I could stay WFH and manage to convince the wife to get a full time job... no doubt I could have a nice car in 10-20 years, once the house is paid off, kids gone and all that.

Everyone is different. I have a friend who pays more in taxes in 3 years than I'll ever earn in my lifetime, and dude drives a 2010? BMW X5 diesel and a toyota tacoma or something.

 

[MCompact]

So you can afford to have nice things, no? So of course you'd have nice or fun cars.

I chased liabilities when I was younger, so now I "have to" chase cost as I get older. Consequences of decisions and all. If I could stay WFH and manage to convince the wife to get a full time job... no doubt I could have a nice car in 10-20 years, once the house is paid off, kids gone and all that.

One thing that helped my wife and I was setting up a budget before our son was born. Another thing that REALLY helped was having just one child; we could take the Club Sport on vacation up until he was about 12. And it kept us out of Minivan Purgatory as well.

 

[Ws6]

One thing that helped my wife and I was setting up a budget before our son was born. Another thing that REALLY helped was having just one child; we could take the Club Sport on vacation up until he was about 12. And it kept us out of Minivan Purgatory as well.

+1
Not having kids has helped me to achieve success financially by a healthy margin. If I was part of a DINK household with a financially equal partner, I can't even imagine. I'd probably retire at 40-45, lol!

 

[Revving2Redline]

Trying for 400,000 miles as we speak. Moved up to a slightly thicker oil around 150,000 and changed cvt fluid every oil change. Small details make big difference in longevity.

 

[UncleDave]

I'm not talking about an established career guy making money buying a few midrange bimmers...

I see a 20-30 year olds pulling down 35-60 K a year buying new 50, 75, 100K cars while living at home.

Single mom "admins" leasing new BMW 3 series every 3 years with no savings to speak of and no college plan for bambino whose financial plan is to welch off an X, parents or "land a rich guy"

Guys renting apartments driving lifted 70K 3/4 ton trucks, claiming they "cant come up with the down" for the house. This is poor financial upbringing and or lack discipline.

The rich and wealthy learned and teach their kids that assets pay for liabilities, start with an asset and you can get anything you want later.

 

[supton]

I started budgeting while in college. Having a budget is easy. Staying within that budget is always harder...

Another problem with budgets is... they have to have good priorities. While I religiously paid off my credit card bills after college, my budget always had an allowance for car payments--but none for retirement. Later on I had no idea how to make it balance: if I penciled in some amount for house repairs, and car repairs, and then all of what life costs on a regular basis, it was always red. Took a long time for the drawbacks of car payments to really set in. My wakeup call didn't hit until I was 36. By then I had bought the wrong house (I might have carefully shopped and kept it to 2.5x my salary, but sold later it for a six figure loss), got married and had kids. Couldn't undo any of that.

So I've spent the last 7 years attempting to fix that. 15% or more to my 401k (although covid reduced this, no company match), max out my HSA contribution, no debt other than a mortgage. Wife says we have 5 months of net income in savings, and my HSA has 2 years max out of pocket in it. But. I still screwed up: two kids with zero college savings, and they go in less than 5 years. 29 years left on my mortgage. Still not regularly putting money into my savings account (only bonus money goes there it seems)--I am still living paycheck to paycheck.

I'm living above my means, I'm afraid, and that's with a budget. Ergo, no nice cars for me, and whatever I have, has to be cheap. And long lived. [That is why I keep wanting to get rid of my truck--I like it, but it's really just a sign of living outside of my needs. But darned if the temptation keeps hitting every year to get something "nicer" or newer or whatever--that is why I keep participating in these discussions, to keep myself rooted in reality.]

 

[350Rocket]

I started budgeting while in college. Having a budget is easy. Staying within that budget is always harder...

Another problem with budgets is... they have to have good priorities. While I religiously paid off my credit card bills after college, my budget always had an allowance for car payments--but none for retirement. Later on I had no idea how to make it balance: if I penciled in some amount for house repairs, and car repairs, and then all of what life costs on a regular basis, it was always red. Took a long time for the drawbacks of car payments to really set in. My wakeup call didn't hit until I was 36. By then I had bought the wrong house (I might have carefully shopped and kept it to 2.5x my salary, but sold later it for a six figure loss), got married and had kids. Couldn't undo any of that.

So I've spent the last 7 years attempting to fix that. 15% or more to my 401k (although covid reduced this, no company match), max out my HSA contribution, no debt other than a mortgage. Wife says we have 5 months of net income in savings, and my HSA has 2 years max out of pocket in it. But. I still screwed up: two kids with zero college savings, and they go in less than 5 years. 29 years left on my mortgage. Still not regularly putting money into my savings account (only bonus money goes there it seems)--I am still living paycheck to paycheck.

I'm living above my means, I'm afraid, and that's with a budget. Ergo, no nice cars for me, and whatever I have, has to be cheap. And long lived. [That is why I keep wanting to get rid of my truck--I like it, but it's really just a sign of living outside of my needs. But darned if the temptation keeps hitting every year to get something "nicer" or newer or whatever--that is why I keep participating in these discussions, to keep myself rooted in reality.]

Different story but same outcome for me, until now. I don't have kids but previous girlfriend's sucked me dry and it took me a while to figure out I needed to get away.

Now I'm with a girl that makes more money than me, and makes sure I keep up with my budget... finally my line of credit is getting paid off..... mileage checks keep putting extra money on my line of credit and my truck repair fund. I still have no car payments (I own an 84 Cutlass that's going up in value, an 83 Caprice that apparently has started to slightly recover (paid $1500 over 10 years ago and now it's being sold for basically $1500 (more like a body job worth $3500 but the guy already owed me some)).

I'm starting to get ahead but I've never had to own a vehicle I needed a car payment on, always drove vehicles older than 15 years old (now 36+37 years old). I don't see the point in making payments on vehicles that will not likely last as long as the 2 cars.

 

[Ws6]

I'm not talking about an established career guy making money buying a few midrange bimmers...

I see a 20-30 year olds pulling down 35-60 K a year buying new 50, 75, 100K cars while living at home.

Single mom "admins" leasing new BMW 3 series every 3 years with no savings to speak of and no college plan for bambino whose financial plan is to welch off an X, parents or "land a rich guy"

Guys renting apartments driving lifted 70K 3/4 ton trucks, claiming they "cant come up with the down" for the house. This is poor financial upbringing and or lack discipline.

The rich and wealthy learned and teach their kids that assets pay for liabilities, start with an asset and you can get anything you want later.

A lot of this is a cultural thing.

The generation that lived through the depression was very frugal (as a whole), when t hey raised Boomers. Boomers wanted to do better for their kids. Their kids grew up thinking money was less valuable, and now...

I started budgeting while in college. Having a budget is easy. Staying within that budget is always harder...

Another problem with budgets is... they have to have good priorities. While I religiously paid off my credit card bills after college, my budget always had an allowance for car payments--but none for retirement. Later on I had no idea how to make it balance: if I penciled in some amount for house repairs, and car repairs, and then all of what life costs on a regular basis, it was always red. Took a long time for the drawbacks of car payments to really set in. My wakeup call didn't hit until I was 36. By then I had bought the wrong house (I might have carefully shopped and kept it to 2.5x my salary, but sold later it for a six figure loss), got married and had kids. Couldn't undo any of that.

So I've spent the last 7 years attempting to fix that. 15% or more to my 401k (although covid reduced this, no company match), max out my HSA contribution, no debt other than a mortgage. Wife says we have 5 months of net income in savings, and my HSA has 2 years max out of pocket in it. But. I still screwed up: two kids with zero college savings, and they go in less than 5 years. 29 years left on my mortgage. Still not regularly putting money into my savings account (only bonus money goes there it seems)--I am still living paycheck to paycheck.

I'm living above my means, I'm afraid, and that's with a budget. Ergo, no nice cars for me, and whatever I have, has to be cheap. And long lived. [That is why I keep wanting to get rid of my truck--I like it, but it's really just a sign of living outside of my needs. But darned if the temptation keeps hitting every year to get something "nicer" or newer or whatever--that is why I keep participating in these discussions, to keep myself rooted in reality.]

Kids can join the military or take out loans/get scholarships/pay for most of their own college. It shouldnt cost much to the parent vs what they cost you just staying home at present. Heck, I cut my dad a $5k check for the classes and books he helped me with over my 4.5 years a d we just called it good, as i also worked and covered a fair bit of my living expenses, which if I'd just stayed home would have been the same anyways.

 

[Nick1994]

I started budgeting while in college. Having a budget is easy. Staying within that budget is always harder...

Another problem with budgets is... they have to have good priorities. While I religiously paid off my credit card bills after college, my budget always had an allowance for car payments--but none for retirement. Later on I had no idea how to make it balance: if I penciled in some amount for house repairs, and car repairs, and then all of what life costs on a regular basis, it was always red. Took a long time for the drawbacks of car payments to really set in. My wakeup call didn't hit until I was 36. By then I had bought the wrong house (I might have carefully shopped and kept it to 2.5x my salary, but sold later it for a six figure loss), got married and had kids. Couldn't undo any of that.

So I've spent the last 7 years attempting to fix that. 15% or more to my 401k (although covid reduced this, no company match), max out my HSA contribution, no debt other than a mortgage. Wife says we have 5 months of net income in savings, and my HSA has 2 years max out of pocket in it. But. I still screwed up: two kids with zero college savings, and they go in less than 5 years. 29 years left on my mortgage. Still not regularly putting money into my savings account (only bonus money goes there it seems)--I am still living paycheck to paycheck.

I'm living above my means, I'm afraid, and that's with a budget. Ergo, no nice cars for me, and whatever I have, has to be cheap. And long lived. [That is why I keep wanting to get rid of my truck--I like it, but it's really just a sign of living outside of my needs. But darned if the temptation keeps hitting every year to get something "nicer" or newer or whatever--that is why I keep participating in these discussions, to keep myself rooted in reality.]

I really should be making better financial decisions. I should have kept my Sonata, it was almost paid off and I should have driven the wheels off of it. The Genesis is a blast to drive, it's fast and comfortable. A remarkable car. And it cost less than a new base model Corolla. But once i hit around 140k-150k miles I might just do one more car, something boring and reliable and pack the miles on that. The Genesis might not be the best thing financially to take to high miles, we'll see how it goes.

 

[350Rocket]

Everytime I put another 100,000kms on my 84 Cutlass it starts over at 0, which is great for resale value . It's got 75,000kms now for the 3rd time (assuming it actually was only 200,000kms when I bought it 15 years ago - pretty sure they were honest with me).
I think that has a lot to do with "cars were lucky to make 100k miles back then" that I hear regurgitated all the time here. I would never lie to anyone if I was selling it (which I'm not going to) but it could pass for 175,000 instead of 375,000.

I paid $1800 15 years ago and it's probably worth close to $8000 now (Canadian dollars), despite all the miles. Even with the money I spent fixing it up, it's probably equivalent to what the average person spends on repairs and maintenance on an average vehicle.

 

[MCompact]

I really should be making better financial decisions. I should have kept my Sonata, it was almost paid off and I should have driven the wheels off of it. The Genesis is a blast to drive, it's fast and comfortable. A remarkable car. And it cost less than a new base model Corolla. But once i hit around 140k-150k miles I might just do one more car, something boring and reliable and pack the miles on that. The Genesis might not be the best thing financially to take to high miles, we'll see how it goes.

When I purchased my 1988 M6 it wasn't a wise financial decision, but I drove it for three years and I loved every minute. If I'd waited until now to buy one it would cost me north of $100k for an equivalent car. Right now I'm looking at a 2016 M3. Impractical?
I sure hope so!

 

[IndyIan]

I started budgeting while in college. Having a budget is easy. Staying within that budget is always harder...

Another problem with budgets is... they have to have good priorities. While I religiously paid off my credit card bills after college, my budget always had an allowance for car payments--but none for retirement. Later on I had no idea how to make it balance: if I penciled in some amount for house repairs, and car repairs, and then all of what life costs on a regular basis, it was always red. Took a long time for the drawbacks of car payments to really set in. My wakeup call didn't hit until I was 36. By then I had bought the wrong house (I might have carefully shopped and kept it to 2.5x my salary, but sold later it for a six figure loss), got married and had kids. Couldn't undo any of that.

So I've spent the last 7 years attempting to fix that. 15% or more to my 401k (although covid reduced this, no company match), max out my HSA contribution, no debt other than a mortgage. Wife says we have 5 months of net income in savings, and my HSA has 2 years max out of pocket in it. But. I still screwed up: two kids with zero college savings, and they go in less than 5 years. 29 years left on my mortgage. Still not regularly putting money into my savings account (only bonus money goes there it seems)--I am still living paycheck to paycheck.

I'm living above my means, I'm afraid, and that's with a budget. Ergo, no nice cars for me, and whatever I have, has to be cheap. And long lived. [That is why I keep wanting to get rid of my truck--I like it, but it's really just a sign of living outside of my needs. But darned if the temptation keeps hitting every year to get something "nicer" or newer or whatever--that is why I keep participating in these discussions, to keep myself rooted in reality.]

I got lucky with some free old cars from my grandparents, parents, no college debt. I almost got a new truck when we started building our house(family pricing deal) but thankfully I didn't pull the trigger... TVM on $30k for 20 years is pretty significant! A trailer and some roof racks hauled everything we needed.
My wife thinks getting the subaru new was worthwhile but it will be nice when its paid for. Atleast its good on gas I suppose. Nice cars are an expensive hobby in the rust belt, so maybe once its clear the kids aren't going for their Phd, I might be able to jump on the "no boring cars" band wagon,but for now I'll thrash around what I've got at the odd autocross. The old wagon is all driver input atleast, no TC, abs, electronic throttle or steering, just the loose nut behind the wheel.

 

[IndyFan]

This topic would be much more informative if in the form of a poll.