A Pathetic Example of Living Beyond Your Means That We Have Normalized

themakingofamillionaire.com

13 points·nateb2022··6 comments

I'm amazed to think outrageous car debt is "normalized". The idea of a cheaper car is always the first advice I heard about getting one's financial house in order. And I always heard those people taking out 60-96 month financing deals made fun of.

Counterpoint: the author just sets up a strawman and knocks it down, same as the "other" personal finance people whose advice he derides.

Not unsurprisingly, he's selling a product.

tl;dr: save on the big expenses (housing, car) and don't sweat the small stuff (weekly pizza dinner, overpriced coffee)

Feels so backwards to me.

I’m much happy driving an expensive car to grocery shop and taking groceries home to my nice house to cook. I’m amazed how much money you can piss away with stupid purchases that never even make you smile.

I smile every time I get in my car and make better coffee than Starbucks anyway.

Of course the marginal utility you derive from any purchases is subjective. But the potential savings impact is much bigger on the big purchases for most people.

E.g. if you spend $7 on an overpriced coffee at Starbucks every day, that's about $2,500 a year. Most people spend way more than that on their car or housing, so saving even a bit on housing/car payments would make way more of a difference than completely giving up coffee.

Yep, car ownership is expensive.

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