@Anonymous wrote:
Haha!! That's too funny!
I agree SUVs are crazy expensive!! Trucks are as well. We had a terrible time trying to find a truck for my husband when we moved here that was still reliable but less than $10k. It's nearly impossible to find something affordable outside of mini vans and small cars.
I guess what I would try to do is figure out what you need or maybe even want (ignore cost for the moment) then use something like Truecar or KBB to see where along the curve the new car depreciation is mostly out of the equation. Sure there's some variance if the car simply wasn't maintained but I've only bought a new car once to date and that was when I was seriously cash flush and just wrote a check for 32K or whatever it was. Incidently that was a mistake in my book but anyway.
Anyway being smart on used car purchases and then for me I usually drive them into the ground is close enough to adulting in my book.
If I wind up at my current gig longer than a year and I'm still in the no wife / no kids situation, I will probably do an anti-adult thing and pick up a Tesla Model 3 for more than I should rationally be paying but that's a function of my current work where they have chargers onsite in the parking garages. Not sure I'd try without that honestly as my current 2010 still has several years left on it to my thinking. I have very little in terms of life or financial responsibilities though, if that changes, will go back to my former used car method haha.... that's adult enough for me too.
That said, if you need a minivan, do a minivan; the economics are there as you suggest. I suspect that worrying about what the neighbors will think is a recipe for an unhappy life.
