I hope they where paying for your insurance then! If an employer dictates what you drive/insure then they should pay you a monthly car allowance or give you a company car.
They did give me an allowance for using my vehicle, but it was a pain in the ass because I lived on LI/in the NYC area so insurance was already ridiculous and that combined with a new Toyota (Corolla, so nothing crazy). The main thing on LI is that I had to drive a lotttttt. So a new car made sense because I'd rather have a car where everything is covered the first 2-years/100k miles, where I would drive over 50k in the first year, than have a semi-used car that I have to pour money into. Also, I never know how much insurance I technically 'need' since so many websites and people give different opinions. I've always heard the 100/300/100 but I want to start saving money on insurance, especially since I'm not driving as much in Indy.
lusone:
I cleared out my Starbucks 401k to go back to school. When I got this job after graduation, first thing I set up was a new 401k.
This is my next car. I got a certified pre-owned from a local dealership, but there's still some occasional weirdness. Like my map lights leaking when it rains too hard.
I've embraced the "buy new and drive it 'til the wheels fall off" philosophy. I'm done inheriting other people's problem cars.
This is basically my plan since I plan to drive them for so long. I'm not anti-used cars tho, idk. I just don't plan on car shopping for another ~8 years
I've embraced the "buy new and drive it 'til the wheels fall off" philosophy. I'm done inheriting other people's problem cars.
After my wife's car basically blew up and she was largely left high and dry for a couple months, I'm basically anti-used. The only reason there's a decent supply of (reasonably) reliable used cars out there is that a number of people have made poor financial decisions... or have way too much money to play around with. Really, the only exception is when an old person dies.
I bought a new truck right out of college and ended up damaging both sides (!) in two separate parking garage incidents (!!) within a year of purchasing it. (yes, I should not have been driving a truck). I never fixed the damage and kept it right until I moved to Indiana, so a good 11 years, but that experience soured me on both new cars and trucks! I have a small used SUV now that I bought through CarMax, and I looooove it.
I hate parking garages so much and I drive a SubieYou learned the hard way that trucks and parking garages don't mix.
I only buy Toyota, Lexus, Honda. You have to be patient and find vehicles with perfect service records. Back in 2009 I spent 8 months looking for the perfect used truck. I knew I wanted a Toyota Tacoma 4 door 4x4. Took my time and found a pre-leased one that had 30k miles and was leased by a guy in his late 50s. Two years ago I decided to get a Lexus GX470 for my wife. Spent 4 months searching. I found out you could plug the VIN into the Lexus website and get all the dealer service records. Found one at a small used car lot with a perfect maintenance record. It looked like a soccer mom that took the SUV into the dealer every 5k miles. I had cash and spent 4 days back and forth haggling the dealer from $13k down to $9K out the door.
