Not everyone is good at planning ahead and his work my not enable him to bring a trailer. It's the same reason why I've been looking for a wagon for LONG time now: they are almost as useful as a pickup and just as efficient and comfortable as a car. TDI wagons are still expensive with a stupid amount of miles on the clock. If the OP is like me, he's also looking for a manual trans which in America is less common than a unicorn. Wagon + 5spd = ~2% of all cars built in a given year. Not to mention that in the past 5 years all true wagons have been morphed in to weird 5door hatches and/or sport wagons yielding not as much cargo space (usefulness) as their older siblings.
If total space isn't a huge deal there should be more Focus 3 and 5 door models available but I'm pretty sure they don't have flat-to-bumper floors (Which is what I want too).
There are also Volvo V50 and V70s. They won't yield great MPG and might be more costly to fix but you can offset that with peace of mind of being in a safe car.
Mazda 6 and 3 hatches might work well too but in the 6, the wagons only came in V6. Older models are the Protege5.
There is at least 1 person on this board with a 4cyl/5spd Ford Ranger getting 40mpg.
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-Mike
2007 Ford Focus ZX5 - 91k - SGII, pending upper and lower grill bocks - auto trans
1987 Monte Carlo SS - 5.3/4L80E swap - 13.67 @ 106
2007 Ford Focus Estate - 230k - 33mpg - Retired 4/2018
1995 Saturn SL2 - 256K miles - 44mpg - Retired 9/2014
Cost to Operate Spreadsheet for "The New Focus"
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