Oh come on, Lemmy. I know I'm on c/fuckcars; but seriously - $600 a month for a new car sounds really good to me, I'm from Eastern Europe.

It's good because new cars are significantly more reliable, fuel efficient, safe and comfortable than 10+ year old cars. If you drive a lot and can't afford to pay $15k up front for a decent ~6yo car, then it's really not that bad. Much better than buying $600 rolling wreckage, I can tell you that much.

Yes people, I know you only use bikes and trains and whatnot. But some people neee cars, and you have to respect that. Or are you gonna tell this mother of 2, living in a village, working from office 20km from home, that she would be better off just sticking to the public transport which visits her place once every 2 hours.

I pay about $450 a month for my mini cargo van and another $80-ish for insurance. I also drive about 3,000 miles a month (my commute is long and I spend most weekends out of town helping my parents), so I average about 350 dollars a month in gas. Let's call it another 100 a month on average for maintenance (I do my own oil, the tires are pretty cheap, but there will be occasional large expenses).

So that comes out to pretty close to a thousand dollars a month total. That's a lot of money.

But by living in the middle of the country far from work, I can rent a trailer home that costs about $1500/month less than a tiny apartment close enough to work to walk or bike, and I have the freedom of owning a car and being able to go anywhere and haul anything I need.

So yeah, it's expensive, but it would be even more expensive NOT to have it.

insurance is whats insane nowadays. i was paying 600 a YEAR for full coverage on my truck until last year when they spiked it to 2100. dropped to just liability and that alone is 650 a year now

A decent 7 year old car with 100k miles on it currently goes for about $15k. Everything private sale is a lemon, completely used up with over 200k miles, or 20+ years old. All still asking thousands more than they're worth.

This was the best thing about living in New York. No need for a car. No expenses paid in car payments, gas, or insurance. People claim that New York City is expensive, and rents are certainly higher than most places, but you end up saving so much money just on the cost of owning a car alone. Overall, the cost of living for me was much cheaper in New York City than it is now in Orlando.

I wish I had the resources to go back.

Wtf does your neighbor drive that insurance is $350 per month on it? A Ferrari?

I care about what kind of car i drive and all of mine are broken because they're old garbage.