New vs. Used

I'll be honest: as much as I love my car, sometimes I get a little depressed with the amount of money I have to put into it to keep it running.

New tires here, new belts there. $50 here, $150 there.

On occasion I dream of owning a car with a warranty. When a part breaks, all I would have to do is take it to the dealer and they'd fix it for free. What a dream.

Well, until I look at the actual numbers. When I learned just how much my Dad pays per month on his 2006 MX-5, I realized that it is cheaper to continue paying to keep my car on the road. It may be old, but it is very reliable. It gets good gas mileage, and insurance is quite cheap. While I don't have a warranty, nor does it have that delicious new-car scent, I sure don't want to spend hundreds of dollars a month for a handful of years for it!

So, even if I spend an average of $100 a month on repairs, I'm way ahead of somebody with a car payment.

And if I were to spend the price of a car payment on my car every month, in a year it'd probably be in show-car condition.

So I guess I consider myself quite lucky to own a used car and I'll probably drive it until it's dead, then buy another classic.