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Iowa | I don't drive the pickup unless I have to for a lot of reasons, mileage being one of them. It's cheaper to drive something else for most of my miles. I mostly drive the pickup when I really need it. That does not add up to many miles for me. The fact that it only gets 10 or 12 miles per gallon or 6 if it's pulling is not a big deal to me. If I need lots of pulling, I get a real truck. Given the limited use, a cheap used pickup can last me ten 10 years or more without major expense.
Then there is the other extreme. I'm thinking about the guy who buys a $50000 pickup for his 100 mile round trip to work on paved roads. He could do the same thing in a new car or small suv at less than half the price and over twice the mileage. It does not explain everything, but I believe this sort of unnecessary expense is part of the reason we have so many people who've had reasonably good jobs all their life and still don't have much net worth when they retire. The guy in this example can spend roughly $8000 per year extra on vehicles and gas alone at current prices.
Just carrying liability insurance also cuts down on costs, but you can't do that if you are borrowing money to pay for the vehicle or have more tied up in your vehicles than you can afford to lose.
You need a reason to drive a pickup, and you need a reason to drive one a lot to own a new one.
That being said, the possibility of injury in an accident is something else to consider. That could change everything. | |
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What is our obsession with fuel mileage?
