This community should add 33 rules so there could be a 34th rule called “make sure to account for inflation” so I could be funny and say “look up inflation rule 34”
funny
My grandmother’s last house cost $6000 less than the MSRP of the car I just bought.
You still can. My dad bought a 2010 F150 for $400 a couple years ago. Sure it used to be a salt truck and therefore had more rust than metal left on its body. Sure it had 4 bald flat tires on it. Sure you have to disconnect the battery every time you park it or it dies. Sure the CD player ocasionally makes grinding noises and starts smelling like smoke every once in a while until you whack the dash hard enough to make it stop. Sure it has no shocks left whatsoever and it feels like you’re driving a trampoline. But who cares about minor things like all that?
back in the early 90s you could buy a decommissioned post office mail jeep for $50 all day long. $500 could get you a vw bug all day long. $1000 had plenty of vw buses.
none of these were all that reliable or warm or safe.
There was a car dealer in my home town (in the mid-90s) who would sell his employees the trade-ins that were otherwise bound for the autowrecker for $100. A couple of those employees would buy the ones with a little life left in them as a favor for HS kids, so half the parking lot of my school was $100 junkers.
My first car was a 1986 Toyota 4Runner that I bought for $1200. It had 4WD, manual transmission and a removable top, effectively converting it from an SUV to a pickup truck with a back seat. It was an absolute blast romping through the desert with the top missing and my cousins in the back.
My biggest regret was selling it when I was 18 so I could buy a Mitsubishi Lancer because of the Fast and Furious films. Biggest mistake ever. It wasn’t even an Evo. Ended up crashing it a few years later. Now I drive a 350Z Roadster. Those stupid movies permanently changed my taste in cars (at least it’s a convertible).
Someday I will again own an SUV with a removable top. But they’re not exactly common. Broncos are too expensive and I don’t want a Jeep. Maybe in 10-20 years…
One of my all time favorite writers is Ross Thomas. He was a WW2 veteran who became a Washington reporter before he started writing crime novels. In one of his books people are stunned to find out that a rich guy spent $3 million to build a house near the California coast. Later we learn that he promises to pay his personal lawyer the exact same salary as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
1980s book
I got my first car a 91 Honda according for 2k, checking online it looks like they still go for 2k but with like 250k miles haha
My first car in 1993 was a 1979 Chevy Monte Carlo and my older sister purchased it for $500 from a friend.
It wasn’t worth much more than that, at the time. As it goes, it might be worth $1000 if someone was to sell it today.
My first car was a 1991 Honda Ascot. I bought it in 2003 in Japan, when I was stationed there with the US military. I bought it off a fellow service member who was leaving the country, for $1,000. I gave it to another service member for free when I bought a better car a year later.
