New Brakes

I had to get new brakes put on the truck today. I've never been so happy to spend $178 on something. I used to dread vehicle maintenance costs. They were always outside of my budget and I had to scramble to get the money to pay for them. But now, paying vehicle maintenance is almost a pleasure.

See, I haven't made a car payment since 2002. Yeah, my vehicles are old. But they look pretty good and more importantly, they run pretty well. They're trustworthy and the maintenance costs are very reasonable compared to a car payment.

Would I like a brand new car? Hell yeah! Do I deserve one? I think so! I'm constantly surrounded by brand new cars as they're being built. Since I work in the automotive industry almost everyone around me buys a new car yearly or even more often. Some of my co-workers get a new company car every 90 days. Corvettes and Hummers and Cadillacs. Oh My!

I spend a lot of time in my car. I drive 45 minutes each way to work. I live out in the country so if we want to go to a nice restaurant or somewhere downtown in Nashville it's a 30-90 minute drive. A new luxurious ride is easily justified.

Having a brand spankin' shiny new convertible sportster would be awesome. A honkin' big SUV with all the luxuries would certainly make my ride more pleasurable. But not as awesome and pleasurable as not having a car payment and not having collision insurance. My pleasure comes from not paying an expensive tab for a depreciating asset just so I can have a new toy that's just going to get old too.

And when the maintenance burden becomes too much, or the vehicles I have aren't reliable enough, I'll have the cash to buy my next vehicle without payments.

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*I know it sounds hypocritical to work in the auto industry when I don't buy new cars. But I don't think it is. Some people like shiny brand new cars. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I can see why, new cars are fuckin' awesome. I just have different priorities. I think it's fine that people don't have the same priorities as me. Sometimes I wish that people didn't spend more money than they have and can actually afford. But I don't think that's ever going to happen, so why not just let them worry about that themselves?