How car buying attitudes have changed

[UltArc]

It seems like most see an investment as solely financial, and always expecting a positive return. I just see it as putting my money into something tangible, and getting SOMETHING back. So I invested in an aluminum single piece drive shaft- I am not expecting to make money off of it or see great FE returns, but I have put money into it a tangible object that does something for me. I don't expect to resell it and make money, although I purchased it for <50% discounted value, but it will continue to help my FE, add value to my car, and worse situation, remove it, sell it, and sell the Mustang with the old DS.

My car has not paid for itself, but what it's allowed me to do, and the hobby, fun, passion, and development/testing with this site has been more than worth the investment

[gone-ot]

Oh, contrare: Education is "...an investment..." one makes in ones self.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by UltArc

I agree that the idea of buying a car now in the idea it will appreciate faster than inflation is not very good, but ifI didn't have my Mustang, I couldn't have moved up from hourly to salary and doubled my income, do my side work, or work to be fully employed in another field.

Seriously? You think you couldn't have done all that without your Mustang specifically? You couldn't have bought a 20 year old Civic or Metro, ridden a bike or scooter, etc? I'm very curious about why.

Or to take something similar, I can't do my work without a computer, so I buy them from time to time. Are they investments? Well, I don't expect anyone to pay me for couple of old 586 towers, or even the old ThinkPad or Dell notebook that are sitting in the closet. (Heck, I probably couldn't get more than a few bucks for the T61 ThinkPad I'm using now.) So they're not investments, they're business expenses - and get deducted as such on Schedule C, rather than on Schedule D.

Or to go a little further, I need electricity to run them, and reasonable internet access for work, and I get monthly bills for those. When I pay the bills, am I investing? No, I'm consuming.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

Cars, bought for 25% of retail value. Fixed for another 25%, driven tens of thousands of miles, sold for a profit, sometimes enough to cover all operational costs.

You're obviously a special case. For you, the fixer-upper cars ARE investments, since you intend to sell them at a profit.

A friend, since passed once chided me for having money in 5% insured CDs when he was making bunches in the stock market. That was 2008. He lost over $300k, I made 12K a year until the CDs matured and they would not renew them.

But see above. If your friend had held the same mutual funds as I did, he probably had about $600K at the start of 2008, saw it drop to $300K at the bottom, then recover to about $750K today. So he would have shown a profit of $150K in 6 years, while you'd have made only $72K in the same period.

[user removed]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

You're obviously a special case. For you, the fixer-upper cars ARE investments, since you intend to sell them at a profit.



But see above. If your friend had held the same mutual funds as I did, he probably had about $600K at the start of 2008, saw it drop to $300K at the bottom, then recover to about $750K today. So he would have shown a profit of $150K in 6 years, while you'd have made only $72K in the same period.

That's what his wife told him, but he died in 2010. My wife wants no part of the stock market. I wanted to mortgage the house (paid off completely) and buy Dominion at $26.15 a share in March 09. It was paying 7%. I could have bought 10k shares with the mortgage interest around 4% and doubled my money easily by now, but she wanted no part of it.

regards
Mech

[UltArc]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Seriously? You think you couldn't have done all that without your Mustang specifically? You couldn't have bought a 20 year old Civic or Metro, ridden a bike or scooter, etc? I'm very curious about why.

Or to take something similar, I can't do my work without a computer, so I buy them from time to time. Are they investments? Well, I don't expect anyone to pay me for couple of old 586 towers, or even the old ThinkPad or Dell notebook that are sitting in the closet. (Heck, I probably couldn't get more than a few bucks for the T61 ThinkPad I'm using now.) So they're not investments, they're business expenses - and get deducted as such on Schedule C, rather than on Schedule D.

Or to go a little further, I need electricity to run them, and reasonable internet access for work, and I get monthly bills for those. When I pay the bills, am I investing? No, I'm consuming.

I actually shook my head when I read this. I did not mean without exactly a 2012, Ford Mustang, I would not be here. Most vehicles would do just fine. I don't think a bicycle, or scooter would have helped much in moving over two hours away, or when I had to commute 3 hours a day for a few weeks, or when I was hauling 900 lbs of bricks over 112 miles. I would still prefer a sport oriented car, even if it wasn't a Mustang- as I have no need for a truck, people mover, and clearly they are easy to pull good numbers from.

So like food, you consume electricity...but if you are using electricity for business, can it not be written off? Some solar panels and batteries can't be written off? I don't work at home, and file simple taxes.

I guess I invest in electricity when I am messing with my stocks or a website of mine, never really thought of it that way. Good point!

[user removed]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

You're obviously a special case. For you, the fixer-upper cars ARE investments, since you intend to sell them at a profit.



But see above. If your friend had held the same mutual funds as I did, he probably had about $600K at the start of 2008, saw it drop to $300K at the bottom, then recover to about $750K today. So he would have shown a profit of $150K in 6 years, while you'd have made only $72K in the same period.

600k at 5% for 5 years, 30k a year or 150 after 5, with no risk, FDIC insured, not including any compounding. Your market can crash tomorrow and your investment can disappear. Mine is completely insured.

regards
Mech

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by UltArc

I don't think a bicycle, or scooter would have helped much in moving over two hours away, or when I had to commute 3 hours a day for a few weeks...

Suppose you could do that commuting by bus or train: would that make the tickets an investment? I don't think so.

So like food, you consume electricity...but if you are using electricity for business, can it not be written off?

Sure, as a business expense, not as an investment. Solar panels would usually qualify as an investment, since you expect them to eventually return more than their cost in the value of electricity produced. That's why most discussions of solar talk about how long it takes to break even.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Cars can be considered an investment, just like a hammer or a screwdriver. They're all basically tools, but some can be fancier, or cheaper but still retaining a reasonable functionality. Eventually, what led to the attitudes change regarding cars is that newer cars are getting kinda mediocre, so it's easier to see them as just another tool.