[TriKKy]

I'm not judging here, but for the life of me I can't understand living 0.9 miles (and to some extent 2.5 miles) from work and taking a truck in. I would walk or bike. I'm relocating to Cincinnati and I am going to live 2 blocks from work happily.

Pops, the only thing I can see where people are having an issue with the plan is that you are going to be paying for an asset way way way after it is used up. It sounds bad, and I likely wouldn't do it, however, I wonder how many of these people have taken a vacation or bought 1-time things with a very short useful life and then used their credit cards to finance it.

As far as vehicles go, I just fail to see the economics of it all. I've maintained for a while that if fuel prices as they are today have gotten you into so much trouble that you have to ditch the truck, then it might not have been a prudent purchase to being with. However, I do understand people wanting to save money but what has yet to make sense to me is how buying a $15,000 vehicle will benefit people who are trying to save gas (the MSRP of the cheapest HHR is $17K). For one thing, it will take a while to save $15k in gas. For another thing, unless you buy the vehicle outright, you are paying interest on a loan and you wouldn't have to pay for gas. Lastly, if all you did was put the money in an account earning 3% interest per year you would be even better off.

In the first post colding got 30.75mpg, great. Let's say on a similar highway run (since it had to be highway as the HHR is rated at 21/30) the Titan will get 14mpg. That difference is 16.75mpg. Let's assume the average person drives 15,000 miles per year. So, you use an extra 15,000/16.75 = 895.5 gallons of fuel per year. Let's assume gas is $4/gallon. Then you are saving $3,582 per year as a maximum ($4/gal of gas, and all highway driving...once city comes into the picture it's less). If the HHR was purchased new, then it would take roughly 5 years for this transaction to payoff. Clearly, the benefits are greater the more your drive and the more expensive gas gets. This doesn't even take into account financing (if any) which can easily add another year or two to this calculation.

I'm not yelling at colding or calling him an idiot, I am just using his case as a general example and for him it might make sense, I don't know. But as a general observation I think people have been too quick to jump. Buying a used car has other pitfalls such as not lasting as long or needing repair work.

The cheapest car you will ever get is the one you already own. Buying a second one, to me, seems insane unless there are some very compelling reasons.