Thursday, March 23, 2006

Car Envy

Recently it came to my attention that people who know Mark and I had started a conversation regarding our cars. Being well-educated they guestimated what the two of us made a year, plus the fact that we have bragged about paying off our student loans, and decided that we should be driving MUCH nicer vehicles. I will let you in on a little secret. If it were up to me we would still have Mark's Festiva from University. You see, I couldn't care less about keeping up with the Jone's gas guzzline, SUV. Yes, I sometimes find myself daydreaming about driving a cute little yellow bug, or an orange Santa Fe and then I remember that we don't have any monthly car payments. You see our cars might not be cool, or even all that practical (I mean, I drive a van and I don't have kids!), but all they cost us is up-keep and gas. When that gets too much they are gone and replaced with another second hand car that we can drive for a couple of years. Now, I should clarify that while this sits well with me, every once and a while Mark chafs under the constraints of not have a sexy car. So I remind him there was nothing wrong with his Festiva when we sold it and that as far as I am concerned I would have driven that car until the wheels had litterly popped off and the engine fell out. If he gives me one of his normal eye rolls, I just say, 'fine, you can have a new car or we can go on 2 vacations this year.' I usually don't hear much after that.

When did cars become the last insane puchase in the world, and one that we seem to be ok with? They are worth a third less then what you paid for them the minute you drive them off the lot, they don't increase in value the longer you own them, and while certain types may add to a person cache they generally do so at a cost relative to half your house. The only other thing that works this way is computers. Why have we quietly agreed to planned obsolences for something that costs too much, doesn't hold its value, and eventually becomes an embarrassment to the preson who once bought it because it was sexy?

Picture from Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiccked/115145021/

2 comments:

Mark Fournier said...

I may have car envy, however, someone I know has GPS envy. Apparently a smaller (thus more expensive) GPS is a better purchase than a larger (thus more expensive) unit that does the same thing? ;-)

Squirrelly Girly said...

Heidi, I am totally with you. I too sometimes dream of a nice shiny new car, but I committed to driving the pontiac until it flies to pieces one day on the deerfoot. I'd much rather spend my projected $450/month car payment on knitting, scrapping or makeup.