Found this very interesting, and especially so since I've been evaluating the financial efficacy of owning a car a lot as of late. I own a Green 98 Subaru Forr

Found this very interesting, and especially so since I've been evaluating the financial efficacy of owning a car a lot as of late. I own a Green 98 Subaru Forrester with about 150k on it that my father gave me on my college graduation. It's been a heap of problems, due mostly to its age, but I've come to realize that owning it is actually not a bad value (it is of course not an investment, but a consumable product). The problem is one of cash flow. My Forrester recently had a wheel bearing go out on the rear passenger side, and it was going to cost several hundred in parts and labor to get it fixed. Since the car is so old and I'm tired of fixing it, I decided to just let it sit for a while and try out not having a car. I started using a car sharing program (CityWheels), which requires you to pay for each time you use one of their cars. Although the cost of operating a rental car is higher and the use case is less flexible, it's not a terrible deal. What it has made me realize though, is that for the cost, owning a car isn't a bad deal if (like me) you live outside of a huge city, there isn't a lot of public transit, and you want to get around. As I mentioned above, it's cash flow that gets in the way of realizing the value. When you own a car, you pay for gas, insurance, incidentals and repairs, and it's the last category that really gets you. Figuring up the cost of ownership, I pay about $.27/mi to drive the Subaru compared to ~$.40 for the City Wheels car, but the CityWheels car feels like a better deal because I pay everything up front. If I need to drive 30 miles, I have to pay the $12 now. If I drive my car 30 miles, I sometimes don't have to pay at all (if I don't need to put gas in it). But then, about 2-3 times a year, I have to pay $400 or $600 all at once, and it makes me resent the thing. I've heard it said that more millionaires own Toyota Camrys than any other model, and it makes sense: as some of the commenters above mentioned, paying for reliability and quality is worthwhile, but paying for an Aston Martin should not be viewed as an investment, but as a consumable.