Coffee heat rising

9 thoughts on “Want…it…must…have…it…”

  1. I have loved (and wanted) a Tacoma for years, but their popularity has always pushed their price above what I wanted to pay. According to TrueCar, even the base model with a v6 is commanding a $30k price which is nearly the full MSRP!

    My partner upgraded to a Kia Soul at the beginning of the year. It’s a 4-cylinder, but has plenty of power for his aggressive driving style. With the back seats down he has plenty of room for shuttling around our dogs (45 and 120 lbs), the architectural salvage pieces he sells on the side. He loves it, and I have to admit his $23k Kia is much nicer than my $30k+ VW.

    • That’s interesting to know. I’ll have to look at one of those things! Thanks.

      SDXB’s Tacoma (one of the earlier models, admittedly: much smaller than the current versions) lasted for-freaking-EVER. It was still running fine when he gave it to his nephew. My son coveted it, too — but of course family won out over friend’s kid. 😀

      The Sienna was expensive as all get-out when I bought it 16 years ago — I think it also was pushing 30 grand. But the thing has run and run and run and run and put up with all sorts of abuse and has cost almost nothing over all these years.

      When I scraped my coreligionist’s car in the parking lot a few months ago…remember that? It crushed two panels on her vehicle and…that’s right…didn’t even SCRATCH the chariot. At all. You would never know it had destroyed 1/3 of a sedan.

  2. I’m likin’ the color of the truck in the pic…..BUT MAN….in these parts those things with 4WD go for the mid $40’s…A lot of things I can do with $40K…..dropping it on a vehicle to haul gravel, firewood, trash to the dump and lawn-mowers ain’t one of them. That $40K in a TIAA-CREF or Vanguard account would grow by more than $6K per year if history is any indication…. And the angst I would feel if I were to scratch this beauty pictured above would be overwhelming. On the other hand a new scratch on my 13 year old truck….just adds to her …”personality”….

    • Forty grand. Can you imagine?

      Right now, the gummint is making me withdraw significantly more than I need from savings, so they can rake off taxes from the IRA. If I could get a 0% loan, in theory I could afford to pay for the thing a little at a time.

      On the other hand…what I WANTED to do with that money was use what I need to live on and then put the rest into a Vanguard index fund.

      On the other other hand….I would dearly love to be able to drive around the state. We live in the most beautiful state in the nation, and Santa Fe is less than a day’s drive. But I’m afraid to take the Dog Chariot on the open road — sooner or later it IS going to crap out, and I sure don’t wanna be out in the sticks when that happens.

      But on the fourth hand, though, the alternator job cost $400, which is one heck of a lot less than a car payment on 40 grand, even at 0% interest.

      I should rent a car, I guess, to drive around in.

  3. The crazy thing, in these parts one could rent a “clown car” from Enterprise and their ilk for like $9.99 a day….Sooooo keep it for the weekend….$30 plus taxes. Last time I had a car towed $125. A guy I manage property for, has a “less than dependable truck” and was going to Florida to play golf with some buddies. The three of them pitched in for an SUV I believe…. and paid less than $100 a piece for about 8-9 days…and traveled worry free. Even at 0% interest…$40K comes out to $666.66 a month … for FIVE YEARS… So if a fella was say 62 when he made this happen….he would be 67 when it was paid off and worth about $15K….

    • Yah, that’s exactly what I’m thinking: Get off the duff, figure out how to get a fair price on a rental, and pony up a few extra bucks for a rental car to go junketing around the region.

      Back in the day, I had neighbors who would do that. They had two perfectly fine, modest but nice cars. They loved to go to Vegas with friends and family members. But instead of putting the wear and tear on their own cars, they would ALWAYS rent a car for the trip.

      I almost fainted when I found that (how apt!!) $666.66/month figure on the auto loan calculator. Even if you have a salary…forgodsake. $670 would have been a third of the net the Great Desert University was paying me. How on earth would you pay rent or a mortgage AND a monthly bite like that?

      • That is true in Europe, but generally in the US there is not a maximum age. I pulled this bit from the Budget website:

        “Are there maximum age requirements for renting?
        Answer: At corporate-operated locations, Budget does not have a maximum age limit in the U.S., but there may be upper-age restrictions in some other countries. Search for your location to find maximum age rules in your rental country. After you find your location, just click the ‘additional information’ link next to your desired location to view location terms and conditions.”

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