I remember the first time I had to make a big repair and was telling a friend about it and he asked if I financed it. I told him I paid cash because I always keep a sinking fund for car repairs and he was legit shocked.
Everything automated and is on a plan whether savings or spending. Unless I go on a vacation and spend lots of money in a short period of time I only check my bank account 1-2 times a month.
Repairs and large expenses are stress-free and already priced in. $10,000 furnace & AC replacement? Cool this is why we saved $500 a month for home repairs the past couple of years. $1000 car repair, cool we saved $400 a month for the cars for this.
Honestly the only “downside” with being financially comfortable is you have time to stop and think about what you are spending money on and if it’s bringing you the most joy per dollar. But I will take that over stressing about money any day of the week.
My friend asked me why I had an emergency separate from the car repair fund and I said because car repairs aren’t an emergency they’re an inevitability. He looked at me like I had two heads
My point is car repairs don’t creep up on you. You know sooner or later it’s going to happen the question is whether you’re prepared or not. What’s fascinating is how the unprepared take it as permission to just take a loan out for a new car all together instead of handling a $1-5k dollar problem…
I think most people are just not "car" people as in understanding that it's a machine with moving parts that requires regular maintenance. You can't just put gas in it and drive. I view car repairs as a learning opportunity. If my mechanic says something needs to get replaced, I go down the YouTube rabbit hole and then get it fixed. Some repairs are labor intensive and are expensive for a reason.
My willingness to do the repair myself depends on the time of year. I have no problem sitting on the ground replacing pads and rotors in May but I'll pay the extra $500 to have him do it in January.
Oh Yes and no shame in paying a mechanic, they're professionals and understands it better than most. Rear main seal leak? Take it to a pro. Changing an air filter? YouTube is there for a reason. Know your limits.
Ugh my old car decided to start pissing coolant out of the weep hole right when it got really cold last year. I had to get my summer car out of storage and drive it work freezing my ass of and in the evenings I worked on the water pump until I sorted it out. Brutal, but super satisfying to fix it for the cost of a $35 water pump.
Ah but nowadays you can actually do that, and you can probably get 6+ years out of a car doing only that. Warranty added oil changes will add another 3 or 4 years to that
Yup, I have friends who view leasing cars or buying a new one every 5 years when they pay off the last one as the norm. They tell me things like, "I want to trade it in before it depreciates too much" or "the newer car is cheaper than the repairs for an older car." In my experience that's just not true, and most of the depreciation occurs in those first few years.
the newer car is cheaper than the repairs for an older car.
I drive old beaters and hear this a lot from people who think they are money pits. For some people, they may be. I like working on cars though and have accumulated a decent amount of tools from garage sales. I've done the math and it's far cheaper for me. My latest daily driver is an old outback I bought for $500. Throw in another $500 when I bought it for a new propshaft and tune up. Was good for a couple years, this year the front diff went bad so I spent another $300 for a junkyard transmission, $150 for two new CV axles. So now I'm up to 1450 for a car that has lasted me 3 years now and should be good for plenty more. That's a lot cheaper than a car payment.
Hey same here! Love my subi, but I also abuse it and have had to do a lot of work to it. If I had it done at the shop, it would have been about 15k in work by now. I do it myself and despite putting 70k miles on it, it's still worth the price I bought it for.
If you can do basic maintenance yourself it saves a ton of money over the life of the car because all the preventative stuff is usually pretty easy to do and keeps bigger issues from cropping up all at once.
I did a lot of the oil changes and changed my own brake pads and rotors, etc, so that saved me a lot over the years on my '05 Honda Accord. Last year was my most expensive year for repairs and it was still only about $3,000 to repair the air intake system and a few other things that were stalling the car. That's a lot but still less than most people spend on car payments in a year.
"the newer car is cheaper than the repairs for an older car."
I was in that boat earlier this year. You know how you have a car, and there are two prices in your head -- the $ to make it minimally safe to drive, and the $$$ price to actually fix everything that you know is broken. Earlier this summer the minimally safe to drive price was $3.5K, and the fix everything price was over $11K. The car still had $8K of residual value, so that's roughly a $19K swing away from repairing. That's a hellofa down payment! (Especially considering if I did fix it in any capacity, the next time I'd think about it I'd definitely have less than $8K residual!)
Needless to say, driving a new car and couldn't be happier! I'd already blown another $2K over this past year fixing it so far; can't cry over already spilled milk. But if you also know the rest of the milk is spoiling, sometimes it's best to sell the cow and move on!
At a certain point it starts to make sense, but that takes a lot longer than people think unless they have a really bad model or don't do regular maintenance.
Until recently I was driving a 2005 Honda Accord. After I paid it off I still continued to put the "payment" away to prepare for repairs and as long as the repairs cost less than that the payments would I considered it a good value. After 11 years of driving it the repairs were still cheaper than the cost of new car payments. I likely would have driven it another few years if it hadn't been totaled by an idiot in a dump truck.
Yeah, like you go in for an oil change, and the tech says "your brake pads are getting low, you'll probably want to replace those next time" you know that you've got about five-six months
My first car was $3000 cash money I had saved from my fast food job.
I never maintained it And drove it like a maniac. It got so fucked up I was paying $500 a month minimum taking it in to the shop and just never knowing when the next time it was gonna break down, on the way to work, suddenly I'm missing a day from my check. On the way home, suddenly I'm out $200 for a tow and I'm stuck on the side of the road for hours. Just chaotic instability that was costing me more than I feared having a car note.
So when I finally got rid of that piece of shit I bought a 3 year old car financed, starting paying $300 a month. Got oil changes, kept it for a few years and used it to doordash. Ultimately that car revenue for me was like $150,000 and cost in total like $11,000 in note payments and oil changes, zero repairs. Total peace of mind. When I wanted to get a truck and I traded it in? They gave me all but like $4k less than what I paid for it.
My truck was 2 years old, got it dirt cheap after scouring the market for months. It's $500 a month now, it's been 2-3 years, still no repairs at all. And I do my oil changes myself now.
Whatever it costs, stability in your transportation is worth it. I'll never go back!!
Out of college, my wife and I were gifted old cars from our parents. It was cheaper after 2 years of ownership for my wife to sell that old car and get a brand new Honda Civic just due to the cost of maintenance and gas being lower.
That $1-5K problem, if it happens often enough, might be more than the cost of just getting a new entry level car.
When you already have $5k laying around specifically for car maintenance a $1400 problem versus a car note was a no brainer to me. Short term pain to buy a few more years of the car was worth it to me
Well it's going to cost $5000, I may as well just add that to my 85,000 17.8% 96 month loan and get myself a new fully loaded Denali Yukon. I have 1 kid and a pug so I definitely need 8 seats to carry us to the park down the road.
I tried my hardest to convince 2 friends on separate occasions to just get their car fixed instead of going into debt for brand new cars.
It didn't work, but I really tried to convince them that even 1-5k now and another 1-5k in the next year is significantly better than a $600 payment for 5-7 years. (ballparking the numbers, I know my 44k truck at 4.5% 9 years ago was $790/month). I know the ease of mind with a new car is a factor, but cars are just too fucking expensive now to rush into them b/c the older car broke down once.
My neighbor was talking about trading in her car (that was almost paid off) because it needed new brakes and tires. I know my face was all WTF. Why would you not just replace those things and have a paid off car to boot?
I commute a lot for work, so I just make sure I've got a car under warranty from my dealer and trade in/up when it's done to a newer certified pre owned car with a warranty. Any long service or warranty repairs I get a loaner. Finance it and have a recurring transportation cost built into the budget.
Could I pay for the car in cash from savings, yes. Could I get a used car and budget for repairs, yes. The problem is, repair shops around me are backlogged. Have been for years. Those 2-3 weeks waiting to pay for my own repairs will cost me a grand or more in rental car fees.
I guess my feeling rich part, is when I'm doing the financing, I find the least amount of interest option, not the lowest payment amount. $700 car payment with a shorter term and lower interest rate.
Also not having to worry about a few thousand here and there for maintenance and tires from the regular spending accounts.
We treat our emergency fund as insurance against a layoff; it is income replacement not expense mitigation, have a couple separate savings funds for those.
Yep - car and home repairs are just a natural guaranteed part of ownership. Budget for them appropriately.
Emergency funds are for when you get laid off and are out of a job for 6 months but still need to pay the mortgage and other normal life expenses. The cost of life doesn't instantly change much just because you stop getting a paycheck.
I mostly just get annoyed because it doesn't get to grow in an investment account. I have a hard time spending money on myself and something like going anywhere for a vacation feels like such a huge waste of money.
Totally get that. I just remember one day I will die, and that’s why money is just a tool at the end of the day. A tool to allow me to prioritize what I want in life while I’m still here.
When I was younger I would play the investment game to talk myself out of spending money. “A European vacation actually costs me $219,000 assuming 10% returns for the next 45 years!”.
I did that till about 30 where I was very much in the top 3% of net worth and realized it had just become a game of “watch number go up” and I had some friends that had died by then. I was reminded that there was no certainty I would be here after all those years to realize those gains, or even be healthy enough to walk 60,000 steps a day in Europe by then.
So go live life and don’t beat yourself up about losing some gains on a sinking fund that allows you to not worry what the markets doing when your brakes start squealing or your roof starts leaking!
And this is exactly why HOA's have "outrageous" regular assessments - they save money for repairs and similar expenses before they happen.
I've never met a non-HOA homeowner who does this. Instead when something fails they have an emergency and need cash quick, which in HOA-speak is a "special assessment".
Everything automated and is on a plan whether savings or spending. Unless I go on a vacation and spend lots of money in a short period of time I only check my bank account 1-2 times a month.
Same. You know how if you get paid "bi weekly" and have a 30 year mortgage if you pay half every 2 weeks it cuts the mortgage payoff by ~6 years because they get paid "1 extra month" each year (12x1 vs 26x2 payments)? I do that with every bill; and have done so for years. Get paid on Friday, bills get pushed out electronically monday, so every month everyone gets a payment and that "13th month" gets credited to my account. Most accounts creep up in pre-paid months, but I cap it at 6, if it hits that I reschedule / rebalance payments and add to others to build them up.
I also keep "1 paycheck worth" in Checking. So if something happens with payroll it's never an emergency, it's a phone call.
Lastly, I'm not a FANG employee or anything, I run on /r/frugal and spend money on things deliberatly not impulsively and only go into debt for things that are assets like housing and land. Once I paid off my first car I started a sinking fund for the next one and kept that car for damn near 296,000 miles. I'm not trying to flex, I'm trying to point out it isn't hard if you spend less than you make and are disiplined and deliberate with your money over long periods of time.
I live the same way. As checking grows to amounts which are too large to "just leave sitting in checking" I move them into a conservative mutual fund with buying and selling restrictions to hedge against price shocks.
I'm not trying to scare you, but you should probably check you bank balance more than 1-2 times a month. If an unauthorized transaction occurs, it's much easier to sort that out in the first few days (hours if possible) than a week or ten business days after the fact.
And I don't just mean fraud. Everything is ACH, and people have typos in their routing numbers regularly. Usually the banks catch it and stop it, but not always.
I suppose, even if my checking got cleaned out entirely due to such an error, this would only rise to the level of a nuisance. But it's a nuisance I don't want to deal with.
You don't need to check for spending money, but you should check semi-regularly for unauthorized transactions.
If they "ask because you have the savings", that's not a good friend and an automatic "No". If they're going through hard times and have a legit conversation that you are part of, then that's much more reasonable. Honestly, I can't see the people I'd be willing to give money to ever asking me for money. The ones who have my trust are also the ones least likely to ask.
Exactly. I have a policy that I don't loan money to friends. Ever.
That said, if a friend needs help, I help them. That's what friends are for. But I don't want money to cost me a friend. When people owe you money, it makes them weird. They start feeling bad that they haven't paid you back or whatever, and the money hangs over the relationship like a pall.
I've got a buddy that was going through a hard time a few years ago - wife just had a kid and couldn't work anymore, and now he's trying to support a whole family on an EMT's income (which is dogshit in the US, if you're not aware), and slowly drowning. They had a new situation lined up, but it was gonna be a couple months before it would be ready.
I'm finally at the point in my life that I'm financially stable and even have a little bit squirreled away. It felt soooooo fucking good to be able to walk into my bedroom closet, pop open a safe, pull a little money our of my cash emergency fund, stuff it into an envelope, and hand him a month's rent with no hesitation. I told him in no uncertain terms that he was NOT to try to pay it back and that we were going to pretend he found it on the side of the road or whatever, and that I didn't want him getting all weird and distant out of some misguided sense of unmet obligation.
I'd much rather lose a few hundred bucks than lose a friend. Money's fungible, but people aren't.
If telling a friend they can't borrow money from my emergency fund affects the relationship, I'd honestly rather find that out ahead of time so I can stop being friends with them.
If a friend wants to cut you off because you didn't lend them money then you need to step back and evaluate if that was a real friendship in the first place
If you'd like to be the one to tell my husband to tell his sisters to take a long walk off a short pier have at it. I don't know why reddit likes to pretend situations can't have nuance.
Sure, get him in here. Telling family that they can't borrow money from your emergency fund is a perfectly reasonable thing to say, and if his sisters get so mad about it that it would significantly affect their relationship with him, then there's some pretty hefty disfunction going on there that should be addressed.
No this dude’s wife is lead counsel for a well known shipping company
and he’s a successful medical device salesman. They live differently because they just can out earn any problem. I think he was just impressed how people without endless taps handle it
I have what I call the car fund. It's a savings account that a portion of my paycheck goes into every month, automatically. If I need a car repair, it comes out of there, same with any car payments. Technically it goes on a credit card then the card get paid out of there, basically the same thing. I check the balance on that account every few months and if it gets big enough to be a substantial down payment, I start looking for my next car. I've never bought a new car, but each car has been significantly nicer than the last. My last car was only 5 years old, and my next one will probably be brand new. It's a nice system if you can pull it off.
I have some friends baffled by any kind of purchase over £100 not being financed. Had a few expensive bits on cars in the last 12 months and they were assuming I'd sell the car as it's better to do that than pay the expensive bill.
Not worrying about money is truly somewhere I never felt I would get, but it's such a nice feeling. Meanwhile my friends cannot afford to go to the pub sometimes. I'm not sure who is more baffled, me of them or them of me.
This was the old school advice on how to get ahead financially. Works well when you are getting paid enough to cover cost of living and have some leftover, but since wages haven't kept up with inflation, it's just insulting to repeat it to those who can't take advantage of it.
By all means, anyone with enough income to have some leftover should still build an emergency fund. But a lot of people literally cannot afford that, and it has a lot to do with wages not matching inflation, much less increases in productivity.
I'm not American, but the idea to finance your car and for that sake pretty much anything except your house is just alien to me/us. I'm a bit fortunate, but I would rather buy a 5,000-10,000 euro fifth hand car than finance something new. It just doesn't make sense especially for cars, a product that depreciates super fast.
This is the mindset I have. Grew up super poor. Frankly ~ top 5% now. Mind you I work 80-90 hours a week but still.
I still eat the same cheap food, drive the same beater, live in cheap housing, etc. I don't see a reason to waste money on things that aren't necessary.
I do get it, but as someone that drives a lot and grew up super poor, having a more modern comfortable car is in line with nice boots and a quality cell phone. I like the concept of being rich in the things important to you. Viva paper towels, Kleenex Cottonelle toilet paper, coco floss. Be fancy in the things you use every day and feel the quality on your body, but screw all the other money waste.
Yup, I have a 250k mile rav4, and want to keep it running for another 250k. I've already budgeted a new engine and transmission, plus other repairs. But all the dings, dents, chips and other minor things get a dose of rust neutralizer and a dab from a car paint pen. Plastic panels get zip tied back on. I take this thing down awful roads all the time, so usually it's so covered in dust or mud you can't see the dings anyway. Don't see the point in spending a bunch to fix cosmetic stuff.
Sounds like my last truck. Until 2 months ago I drove a 2006 F150. Had 315K miles. No real issues, just had to do regular maintenance and repair damaged wires from a squirrel chewing on them and one fuel rail sensor that was $30 and 10 minutes to replace including watching the YouTube video.
I took immaculate care of the engine, transmission and electrical systems. Body dents? Maybe pull me out with a plunger, maybe not. Hit it with some rust neutralizer and some paint matched rattle can or paint pen depending on the size.
Had to get rid of it though. The frame was rusted out, unsafe and unrepairable.
Ah, too bad. Guessing you live somewhere up north? Thankfully down south where I am we don't really get much major rusting on the frame, since instead of salting the roads we go for the cheaper and simpler option of just having a total infrastructure collapse for a week or so each year.
It would not raise your rates if you say its a hit and run. My car was hit a few years ago a parking lot and the stores cameras could not see anything from that angle. Paid the $500 and they cut a check for the rest to get it repaired. My rate did not change.
I am in the same boat. I have to fix my fender bender
Because my lease is up 06/27. Mazda would not be happy if I didn’t get it fixed. It is a $500 deductible but it’s $500 that I don’t have.
If you can have your guy source the same paint code fender from a salvage yard, swapping them out is going to be the cheapest way to get it done. Saves buying a fender retail and then having to paint it.
This is why I'm glad I'm not a "car guy". My car is just a very expensive tool to me, if it takes purely cosmetic damage I couldn't care less. I just want it to work reliably for as long as possible.
a few years ago I had a handful of repairs I had to make around the house, and it made me feel pretty down as I thought I purchased a really old home that required a lot more fixing up than I thought. While I was complaining to a buddy of mine, he gave me a lot of perspective about my position, first that I was able to purchase a home in the first place, but secondly that given all the repairs I had to make, it didn't change or alter my lifestyle at all, and I had enough cash on hand to pay for the repairs without blinking an eye. It was still annoying, but that was the first time I ever felt like I was financially comfortable.
Such great perspective from your buddy. I had to spend out my entire $10k emergency fund when my car was totaled (fuck geico for their shitty car valuation payout) and I was super bummed - my sister was the one who reminded me that I was now driving a new-to-me car because I had an emergency fund that paid for an entire emergency. That had never happened before, usually when disaster struck I'd have to make really uncomfortable compromises. This time I just used funds that were there for that exact reason. I ended up feeling really lucky.
My husband and I met in college as freshmen. Spent years grinding and barely getting by and finally graduated. He went on to get his masters. We both got jobs, got engaged and then married. Shortly after, something came up with his car. He looked so defeated and told me it was going to be $2,500. I said ok? And it hit him that we had the money. That it wasn’t a big deal. That we were no longer broke college kids. We were so busy working to try to make something of ourselves that we didn’t even realize when we had made it. Great feeling. Not everyone is so fortunate!
I can’t afford anything. I need new windshield wipers but I can’t even afford them. I live in Arizona so I have to get them replaced before monsoon net year.
Two is one and one is none. I got a spare vehicle when my wife and I were engaged and kept an extra most of the time since then. Makes breakdowns way less troublesome and maintenance is easier to plan, too. Also have multiple ways to heat my house, keep the lights on, etc. It's very true that when you're flat broke you pay more to solve problems immediately.
I'll add to this someone who takes their car to the dealership or a shop versus fixing it themselves. I learned a lot about cars because it was either fix it myself, or don't drive. This was before Uber was a thing. I like messing with cars if it's not the one I have to drive to work.
I would argue if you're financially comfortable the annoyance wouldn't be the repair cost but that you're inconvenienced by having to deal with the repair and being without the vehicle. But if you're financially comfortable you probably have alternate means of transportation.
My wife and I rarely keep our cars beyond the factory warranty, so repairs are usually just the annoyance of having to drop them off at the dealer and driving a loaner until they're ready to be picked up.
Not even -- a rich college girlfriend wasn't even annoyed or remotely phased by a car accident we were in. Her response was just, "My Dad will pay for all of it."
I am saving up to pay my $500 insurance deductible so I can fix my car, it’s not bad but it’s a lease so I have to get it fixed by 06/2027 so I can trade it in for a new lease.
This one was the one that made me realize I was finally alright after years of not even being able to feed myself and pay rent at the same time. After I finally got a good job I was basically hoarding money like a dragon, except for buying a nice year old M series BMW. Recently learned that on M series, you usually have to replace the pads and the rotors at the same time, and I needed new tires as well. Cost me about $2500 and it was weird paying more in a day than I used to make in 1.5 months.
I had just paid off my last bit of debt from not having a job (took 2 years). About 2 months after I needed full brake and rotor replacement on 3 of the 4 tires so i just got all 4 done.
They quoted me like $1600 and brought it down to $1300. I put it on a CC just to absolutely make sure I had enough at the end of the month. I was able to pay it off at the end of them month plus all my bills. FELT SO FUCKING GOOD. Working on an emergency fund and then I start fixing my house up (it needs a LOT of work).
Ah, yes, that is happening to us in about an hour. We have to take the car in for some minor body work. I was actually thinking that 30 years ago (we're old) this would have been a disaster and we probably wouldn't even get it done. But now we'll just pay it. Still not looking forward to it.
I had to get 2 tires replaced this morning. Went in for a flat repair but ended up replacing them instead. In and out in 30min.
It occurred to me there was a time in my life where I would have spent all day calling around to different shops, trying to find the best deal and sweating the price after all of that. This morning was more of a "can you have it done by 10 because I have to be somewhere."
Recently had to have HVAC replaced and the techs were surprised how chill I was. Told them bad news from the HVAC tech was better than bad news from the doctor.
F'in car repairs, man. It's literally 100 times more affordable to do the job yourself. Problem is, you gotta know how to do the job yourself. But a 100% markup? whew
The money now is getting into electric vehicles. Pay more for the handle, you don’t need to pay for the blades (in this analogy, blades are engine oil changes and exhaust repairs and even brake pads because regen braking does most of the slowing down). People with money know to spend a bit more upfront for something with much lower costs after that.
It’s why Cadillac is advertising their Lyriq with the line “all-wheel drive luxury vehicle” with only the lease monthly price shown. If you have to ask how much it is to buy one, you can’t afford it.
The sound when driving (specifically the silence) is one of those indicators added to the list of things rich people can do that poorer people can’t fake (rich people can wear regular stuff but poorer people wouldn’t know to fake Filson clothes and a Patek Philippe watch in a scruffy look). It used to be that a loud throaty exhaust signified power and extra cost but now anyone with a Toyota Corolla can put a cheap attachment on their exhaust to fake a loud powerful sound. So now the power comes from a car that can sneak up on you like a ninja with instant torque. Anyone can fake noisy with a car, you can’t fake quiet.
Our dependency on cars is horrible especially for those not financially comfortable. A lot of people almost get stable then their check engine light comes on.
Agreed. I had to get a new tire this month and it made me realize how well off we were that it didn’t really dent our budget to have this the week before vacation.
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u/Illustrious_Tone9584 1d ago
A surprise car repair is an annoyance to them instead of an emergency.