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You have an interesting concept of being a "free man". Debt is a tool, not a form of enslavement. For example, many people who could pay cash for a car take a loan instead, because they know they will have more money at the end of the loan term if they invest their cash, or because taking the loan will cost them less money than cashing out some investments and paying capital gains taxes. You can get car loans these days with less than 1% APR. At that rate, it almost never makes sense to pay cash, at any price -- the interest rate on the loan is less than the rate of inflation! I've bought cars for $2k or less several times, and I kept each one for several years. If I hadn't known how to work on them myself, they would have ended up costing a lot more than what I paid initially. I bought my current car new -- it is a lot safer than the cars I used to drive, it gets excellent gas mileage, it has a great warranty, and it will last me a long time. When I retire several decades from now, I certainly won't regret having purchased a new car back in the 2010s -- the price I paid will be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount I will have earned and saved by then. All I would get if I buy a $3k car is unnecessary suffering and inconvenience, and significantly higher risk of death in an accident, that wouldn't amount to much savings in hindsight. |
Perhaps so, but at some point one does see diminishing returns on getting a newer vehicle.
$3K these days won't get a hassle-free car, but $6K perhaps would.
How does one get safety statistics? I thought that any car made, say, in 2010 wouldn't come with a significantly higher risk of death compared to the same model made today.