I feel the exact same way about my Civic. I’m going to drive it until it quits or until the maintenance and repair bills start getting out of hand. I’d rather drive an older, reliable car than saddle myself with an auto loan.

Ashley,

I’m glad you can see beyond what other people may consider normal these days. Look at Warren Buffett. That dude has been in the same house for 50-some years I believe! lol. I love your tree idea; that’s really neat!

But unlike most people we bought only what we could afford each time. First time a 1 bedroom condo 570 sq ft. Everyone made fun of us and laughed when we said it was adequate. They said we should have stretched and bought a 2 bedroom condo. We said no, we can’t afford it.

Then we bought a townhouse, in a nice neighborhood. But everyone again said to us why not just buy a home. Geez a lou! We have 3 bedrooms, no kids! And we are planning on having 1 child in our home. We didn’t need a house and we couldn’t afford it. See a pattern here?

Our next move will be to a single family home. I don’t know if we’ll stay forever, depends on the location, job, and immigration situation. So we’ll try hard but I won’t promise anything. I learned never say never.

So I will be the person continually trading upwards. Is it a bad idea? I think it would have been a worse idea to buy something we couldn’t afford than something we can afford!

Besides maybe one day we can buy a home we really love. We’ve loved our condo and townhouse a lot. And feel great pride but we still sigh over single family homes.

I am driving a 1999 Pontiac Grand Am with 165,000 miles on it. When I had DD two and a half years ago, my coworkers thought I was going to trade it in for a “safer” car like a minivan or SUV. I told them no way. I am keeping it until it dies or I feel its not safe for me to drive anymore. I am having another baby in April and though it will be a little tight on trips, we are keeping it. I am not looking forward to a car payment!

Great post.

We got the same reaction when we bought our van in ‘06. The salesman asked us how long we expected to keep it, and we said in unison “Until it dies!”. He just couldn’t believe we weren’t going to trade it in after a year or two.