I was a car fanatic in my early years. When I was a small child I wanted to be a race car driver. My favorite toys were my Hot Wheels cars. I had a little yellow Corvette Stingray that was my very favorite. That car raced around the house, inside and out. It raced on tracks, it performed daredevil stunts, and survived many death defying crashes. This love affair with cars started very early.
In my teenage years I had a subscription to Motor Trend. I kept up on all the latest car trends. I read about every new sports car, and even skimmed articles about sedans. I dreamed of all the cars I would own. I wanted a Corvette, and one day, when I was wealthy I would own a whole garage full of cars. A fleet of sports cars and exotics; Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and more.
My parents bought my first car. It was quite a battle, with me looking for something sporty and fast, and my parents wanting something reliable and safe. We compromised on a Honda Accord hatchback.
A few years later, I married Dream, and we were both working and making a small income. Our cars, old when we bought them, were slowly dying. I bought my first brand new car, a shiny black Isuzu pickup. It was awesome.
Soon after, Dream needed a new car. We really wanted something sporty and found a great deal on a used Nissan 300Z twin turbo. Man that car was fast. We both loved it. We kept it for a little over a year and overheated it due to a cracked radiator. Luckily it didn’t cause any permanent damage, but we realized we couldn’t afford to fix it if anything major happened.
In 1998 I traded in my Isuzu truck for a brand new Jeep Wrangler. It was the car I dreamed of, but never realized I dreamed of it. I had always been fascinated by Jeeps, but word on the street was they weren’t safe. That’s actually a myth based on some very old models from the 60s and 70s.
We owned a few other cars also, but in the early 2000s we decided it was time to get out of debt. We picked up a copy of The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. After working Dave’s plan, we were able to pay off all our debt in about two or three years. We also vowed to never get another car loan. That was the beginning of my breakup with cars.
I still had a pretty good income, and my employer at the time gave out very hefty bonuses at the end of the year; enough to buy a pretty nice used car. I knew we really couldn’t afford new cars, and Dave Ramsey makes a good argument for buying used. We ended up buying a couple of used cars in the years that followed.
I bought a Chevy pickup. My daily commute was long and the mud tires I “needed” on the Jeep made the commute uncomfortable. Plus I wanted a tow vehicle to tow the Jeep to all the best Jeepin’ trails. (Yeah, I know, in hindsight it was a dumb and unneeded purchase.) At some point we sold Dream’s car and bought a nice used Lexus with cash.
Getting out of debt, buying used, and paying with cash were all parts of the breakup. The biggest part for me was canceling my Motor Trend subscription. I didn’t need that magazine filling my head and heart with wants. After unplugging from the constant source of “Look at these awesome new cars… you must buy them… they are so cool,” I became much less interested in new cars.
Then one day it just clicked. A car is transportation. Period. End of story. It doesn’t really matter what car you drive as long as it gets you where you need to go. I sold my truck and started driving the Jeep on a daily basis again. I found a used set of tires on craigslist to replace the mud tires to make the commute more pleasant. Even more so, I no longer feel like the Jeep is a part of me. I mean I still like it, and I enjoy driving it, but I could sell it and not feel bad about it. I feel like I could drive anything and be satisfied.
After breaking up with cars I feel much more level headed about the automobile. I still like to drive something nice, but I don’t NEED to drive something nice. My Jeep is now 14 years old and I’ll likely continue to drive it for many more years. Dream’s Lexus also 14 years old and is still running strong, but will likely need to be replaced in a few years. We are putting money into a savings account we dubbed the car fund, so that when the time comes, we’ll be able to buy a replacement with cash.
It feels good to not catch that new car fever anymore. It took a long time to break up with cars, but we finally did it. I no longer have that emotional attachment to cars. Breaking up meant one less financial burden pulling at my heart strings, making room for better use of my energy and better use of our money.
How do you feel about cars? If you are still in the throes of passion with the automobile, are you able consider a future breakup? Maybe you already managed to break up with cars; How did you handle the break up? I’d love to hear your story.
Breaking up with stuff is a series about the hold our stuff has on us. Over the past few years I have had to end many love affairs with stuff. It’s the path that every minimalist must take. At some point in your life, you find yourself with more stuff than you knew you needed… knew you wanted even. You’ll see that you have a house full of stuff and you’re running out space to store it. You might look at your paycheck and wonder where it all goes. At some point you’ll decide your stuff is no longer treating you well and you’ll decide it’s time to break up.
Contribute your breaking up with stuff story by emailing freedom at rethinkingthedream dot com or by using my contact page.
Click this link to read all the stories about breaking up with stuff.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I grew up in a family who really de-valued cars in terms of ownership. My dad likes to talk about cars sometimes, but we’ve never had nice cars. Growing up, I was embarrassed that my parents didn’t have nicer cars (like when our family of 5 had to pile into my mom’s 2 door Hyundai hatchback). The Hubs, on the other hand, grew up with a step-dad quite into cars. They never had fancy cars, but his step-dad does have a ’77 Corvette he’s restoring. So he’s been into cars much, much longer. He started off with a Supra that he and his step-dad were revamping. Then he got in a wreck and switched to a 92 Civic. When we got married, we had his ’92 Civic and my mom’s old Kia. The Hubs’ grandparents were getting a new car and sold us their low mileage ’97 Camry for $1 (yes, you read that right). We donated the Civic at that point as it needed a lot of work. Once we moved, we got rid of the Kia and went down to one car. We tried the one car thing, but with The Hubs working 90 miles away and me being home alone with an infant, it just didn’t work. We purchased a 2001 Maxima from my best friend’s family knowing it needed work. We had the Camry and Maxima until January of this year, although we stopped driving the Maxima as of Oct. 2011. The Maxima ALWAYS needed work, which we were sick of throwing our money into. Now, we just have the Camry (which also needs work). We hope to get another car once The Hubs’ shift changes (won’t make sense to drive him to work when it’s 30+ miles round trip instead of 14). Thankfully, we have money saved up for a used car. However, I hate spending that kind of dough on a car, so we usually end up with older cars that need work sooner than we’d like. Our hope is to one day save up enough to get a really nice used car, but until then, we make do with what we can afford and are just thankful we can get from point A to point B.
Megyn @MinimalistMommi´s last [type] ..Home Tour Series: My Dirty Little Secret
I’m so impressed that you guys live in the state where you live and are okay with one car. Everyone I know who lives there seems to think they’ll die without a car!
joanna @ I Won’t Be a Hoarder Too´s last [type] ..Attacked by a book (or three)
Sounds like a good plan. My truck was kind of like your Maxima. It was good for a while, but towards the end it was needing work done every month. Even though it was paid for, the cost of repairs got to be too much.
I cannot relate to this at all. In the slightest. No way and no how.
My car is goldy coloured. It holds all the kids and a buggy. It gets us safely from A to B. (OK, I’m not that clueless – it’s a Grande Picasso.)
Before that, we had a dark blue car that held all the kids (only had 3 kids at that time…) and got us safely from A to B.
Before that, it was a wee red car that got my husband and me (and our first baby) safely from A to B.
Before that, it was my mum’s (very) old Mazda 323 which she forced me to take as she wanted me and hubby (though not yet married) to come home to visit more often and the bus times weren’t convenient.
Basically, cars get us from A to B safely and comfortably. We’ve always bought used and always paid in cash. We like cars with lots of leg room so that’s often a deciding factor.
The only reason I even know the name of our car is because I do the paperwork for it. Seriously. My neighbour had a new car for 5 weeks and I didn’t notice because it was the same colour as the last one…
I always assumed people that are “into” cars are proving something. Maybe just to themselves, I don’t know. But it shows a lack of contentment with something, I think.
Karen
(Scotland)
Up until 2 years ago I had never had a car payment; my parents had given me a decent car and when that died I bought a used car for less than $2,000 for myself. When that car died, I somehow stupidly thought it was time to take on a car payment.
Oh well. Lesson learned: when I can get rid of my current vehicle it’s back to sub $2,000 cars or trucks for me.
Brian´s last [type] ..When Minimalism Doesn’t Work
Cars? They’re holes in the road into which you pour lots and lots of money. I didn’t realize that at first though.
One of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received was an eye surgery gone slightly bad. My left gaze had a nasty blind spot that’s big enough for a car to disappear into. This didn’t happen until right after college but right before I was going to buy a car. I was forced into a car-free lifestyle and came to love it. I moved to a city and discovered I loved living in an urban setting. Then I discovered how much my then boyfriend’s car cost him. When I had another surgery to improve the situation I was able to drive again, but by that point I’d structured my life so I didn’t have to.
So to anyone who ends up with a situation where they can’t drive for a while, I’d say go for it. Enjoy it. Use it as a chance to see if you can get by without your car.
HOWEVER, my husband does have a car since his job is nowhere near public transportation. While he picked a mid-range luxury car (an Acura), he intentionally picked it because of how reliable it is. Seven years old and we’ve had one minor problem with it. It may have cost more than a Ford (Fix Or Repair Daily?), but we have fewer trips to the mechanic with the Acura. And certainly fewer trips and expenses than my MIL has with her Jag, or my parents had with their Volvo. Boy do they ever pay for the brand. And in DC, Acura isn’t even considered a luxury brand anyways.
joanna @ I Won’t Be a Hoarder Too´s last [type] ..Attacked by a book (or three)
I’ve never been a car person although I grew up in a ‘car family’. When I married my hubs, he owned a 1968 Mustang Shelby convertible complete with roll bar. Yeah, I know, now. It was awesome. But I didn’t realize just how awesome. We sold it after our son was born. Living in Indonesia, I never even drove a car for years. Returning to the US, we had my hubby’s work transportation and a big old Dodge Ram van (we had 4 kids), no radio–just a basic van. We loved our transportation and cried when it died, literally (cracked something). Because we had saved $, we were able to buy another used car. We’ve been very fortunate to never need to borrow money to buy a car (Yay for Ron Blue–just like Dave Ramsey!). As soon as we retire, we’ll go back to being a one car family. Hubs only drives his Ford Focus to university during the school year. Freedom, you’re right–a car is transportation.
Willow´s last [type] ..Production!
Paying cash for cars is awesome. It’s good to see that some people actually save up for a car instead of paying money to the bank and buying more car than they can afford. I’ll have to look up Ron Blue, I haven’t heard of him before.
I grew up in LA for a while and we walked or took the bus – everywhere. Then we moved to a small town and walked. When my father began to travel to neighboring towns we had one of those big clunkers and then a wood paneled station wagon that we could be embarrassed to be seen in. Back to walking.
When I left home I was impressed by a nice car, until I spent time riding in one that hadn’t been maintained. Leaving that relationship, I was back in town, on the bus or walking.
My very first car was a 1977 Toyota Celica. It was given to me. I had three children and I was thankful. It came in a light blue, but my favorite car color was red. So, I spray painted it. And if the sun faded the finish, I had plenty of cans for a touch up. Cost me less than $10. It lasted well into 1992 when it began to sound like tin cans banging. There began my experience with car payments.
Fast forward through many cars, a few payments and to now. I needed a car because I was traveling for my work. I had two vehicles I owned, but both were sucking all my funds away. In 2005, I bought another car, with a payment. BEST PURCHASE EVER!!! (Shameless plug: 2005 KIA Rio)
The process was intense because I felt backed into a corner, but I have been driving this car for seven years with no repairs at all. I paid it off a year early and tucked the remaining into savings. It is not fancy – no electric windows, locks, or mirrors. No bluetooth, heated seats, or DVD player. It goes. And for the most part it looks good. There is a dent someone left me and evidence of spatial misjudgement. She is all mine and I will keep driving her until the wheels fall off.
Letting go of the attachment to other people’s opinions will open wide the door to freedom, in all areas.
Zaftig Diva´s last [type] ..Staying cool in the triple digits
Hi Zaftig Diva,
Welcome, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I hear many good things about Kia; pretty much everyone I know that has one has said only good things. Even with the car payments, you are doing better than most – paying it off early and then keeping it. I know many people that jump right back into another new car as soon as they get one paid off.
Awesome point about other people’s opinions. I think a huge part of the love affair with cars comes from trying to impress people. Cars can be huge status symbols, and many people buy into that. It becomes another case of keeping up with the Joneses.
I’m with you! I used to LOVE cars. I got my first job out of college and started salivating over a new-er Jetta. When I finally got my little manual I was enamored… and then not even 2 weeks later it had lost it’s newness. I was tossing trash in the backseat and spilling soda on the seats and not caring. At the end of the day all the pretty things we want end up just being another “thing”.
MinimalMama | Spreadsheet of Life´s last [type] ..My 15-year mortgage payment isn’t pretty.
Hi MinimalMama,
It’s funny how careful we are with our new cars until the newness wears off. I know a few people with a no food or drink rule in their cars. I’m not sure if that’s a permanent rule or just temporary until the newness wears off.
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