Given Up on Buying a Car

Well the quest to get a used car took me a while and after coming very close, I decided that maybe a car isn't a wise decision at all for a near 18 year old. After all, a lot of the time I do have my parents car, so why burn through my really hard earned money?

While my parents CRV is a slow, poor handling CUV, it gets the job done- although I wish I got better than 18mpg!! Its a freaking 4 cyl. 2.0L...

Now, I got other things to worry about- paying off the soon to be student loan. Hoping I can get into the Co-op program (12 months work experience spread over the last 3 years), then find a car I want

Living on res has no real use for a car as everything is walking distance anyways- life without driving will make me feel like I'm 15 again LOL. I guess I will be back to square one in a year and a bit.

PS: Aldric how do you do it! GLK and MS3!

 

You are making the right choice. A car payment sucks, no matter the vehicle you are paying on. First couple of months are fine and then after that it starts to hurt giving up the hundreds a month plus the insurance because you think of other things you could spend the money on. Buy something cheap and fix it if you are able.

 

I hear ya on that CRV....my buddies 2010 CRV gets an average of 21mpg which is a complete joke considering that car takes about a decade to reach 60mph....the torque non-existent. But it has been reliable so far after one year and 30,000+ miles.

Wise choice on holding off the car purchase. Buy one when you actually need it and have no alternative. With today's fuel prices, it's ridiculous... I'm even thinking about getting a hybrid soon if this keeps up.

 

Its a 1999 kept up with maintenance, pretty low millage, but just bad on fuel. With gas being the equivalent of $5.45 a gallon, it's just ridiculous!

Its also slow at shiz! I clocked 11seconds on the iPhone timer... Sometimes it's worrying to get up to speed quickly enough.

It took me a while to get over it, but in the long run it is the wise decision

 

I wished I would have followed my grandpa's advice when I was your age ... buy cash ... buy something that you can learn how to fix ... and save your monthly car payment. Use that money for a nice downpayment on a house.

I've had my share of nice cars, but I'm really enjoying the house I bought for my family a few months ago. It's nice to have a cool car, but having a house is more important. You can improve the looks of a turd with a few detailing tools. I'm driving an 11-year-old car and I couldn't be happier.

 

I totally agree!

Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk

 

LOL your grandfather sounds just like mine. Thats why I brought my first house at 19. Very wise advise.

 

!!!! 19 holly shmoleee. Houses here cost upwards of $300k...

 

I hear you Luke, I'm 21 and in the same position, I was looking for a used car for under $5K and decided to buy a Toyota Echo Hatch but I pulled out in the last second this Sunday, firstly gas is going to be $1.50/L or $6.60/ U.S. G by August secondly I can make do with my parent's cars. I also want to help my dad pay-off our house, after everything paid, I can buy a car cash, hopefully it will be electric and I won't have to worry about gas prices:headbang:

I'm going to live the public transit life for now but at least I get to detail CARS

 

luke, the diference is that my family is chinese which is very different culturally. And btw its a Mazda 5 not a MS3, it was way out of budget back then to even go for a Mazda 3 lol.
But yeah the Mazda 5 was bought by my family and its intended to be passed down to my sister.
the GLK is financed, you would hope that I had that much money off the bat, I sadly dont =p
Nonetheless, chinese family culture goes along the lines of family takes care of you till you get a job then you gotta take care of em back. Once I get a full time job, I have to pay for my sister's tuition and my little brother's school fees as well, along with rent and stuff. My "fun" car will not come till a long time later...
Also I used to get told off for trying to find a part time job lol
so yeah... I cant help you there luke

 

Do as I say, not as I do...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKyV8CTHeJ0

 

Its all good Thought you had a MS3 because of the Zoom-Zoom

Agreed!

 

Some crazy guy came to our school telling us something similar. At the current interest rates of 3% or so in a mutual fund its just not feasible. Everyones moving away from mutual funds and changing things up. I know for a fact that gold has been a great investment for my parents, doubling in 1 year! (Too bad that they don't keep track of things and don't invest a lot of money).

 

gold is at record high because of so much uncertainty
but yeah investing is quite sketchy at the moment to be honest. too much of a mess at the moment.

 

Yes, I agree. Markets are very messy. Resources might go up, but they might fall down shortly. Personally, I don't want to get into investing until I feel financially stable to do so.

 

I'm going to invest $1000, in RIM stock next month if all goes according to plan, it grows at 6% annually. Luckily my uncle who also manages my TSX portfolio ripped me apart when I wanted to get into to GMM.U (General Motors Canada), I would have been out $150 by now..

 

Rims been taking heat hard recently. If my predictions are correct there should be a 10% increase from now until summer. The Playbook shows Rims potential and the fact that its low right now make its very enticing to purchase. If you do buy it, let me know how it goes

 

just invest in korea, more high tech parts are gonna come from Korea more so than Japan because of the rolling blackouts.
playbook may flop, apple has too much market power in the tablet sector, with android already there suffering.

 

While its true apple will stay a market leader in tablets for quite a while- just as they did with iPods. The Playbook will succeed just for the reason Blackberry is still succeeding, and thats the enterprise market. If they go head on and target the regular consumer, no doubt, they will fail. I think the OS is smoother and more elegant than andriod and the security itself already branches out to business. The Korea thing is very smart tho!

 

I can only invest in TSX related stock(no Hyundai or LG for me), RIM is only a bit of my stock options. I am very heavily researching into the Alberta mining sector, reading the mining reports are boring but I can still understand them because of my brief knowledge of the materials engineering