It’s one of those mornings.  I don’t know if it’s last night’s enchilada or just too many thoughts running around in my head but I need to put some pixels to virtual paper even though it’s 0430.  So here goes.

As most of you know, I’m a pretty pragmatic guy.  Normally I’m not impulsive and I like to think things through before I jump in.  I’m especially that way when it comes to cars.  Now don’t get me wrong, like several members of my family, I love cars.  I like everything about them.  There are few things as enjoyable as driving on a winding Pennsylvania road with a stiff suspension and tight steering.  I like the smell of a new car, the feel of leather on the wheel under my fingers, the purr of well engineered engine.  I love everything about cars except for one thing, the payments.  And here’s where my pragmatism takes over.

I decided years ago that if I was going to buy a new car, I would pay cash for it.  So, to that end, I started out with used cars. My first car was a 1966 Studebaker Commander.  It had been sitting in our driveway for years.  My dad bought it from a friend for $100 and it needed a lot of work.  So in the summer of 1974 I asked dad if I could buy it from him so I had something to drive to college.  He handed me the keys and said if I fixed it up and it passed inspection it was mine.  Sort of a graduation gift.  I spent that whole summer replacing fenders and painting and when school started I was on the road.  I drove that car through four years of college, to pilot training in Del Rio, TX, to Rapid City, SD and kept it until I bought my first VW in 1981.  It died an ignoble death at the hands of a drunk driver while parked in front of my parents house.  It did, however, provide me with a path to a new car.

Not long after I went on active duty, I started making car payments.  Not to GM, or Toyota, or even Volkswagen, but to my savings account.  I noticed all of my Air Force Academy buddies in pilot training had purchased new cars right after graduation and I figured if they could afford car payments so could I.  So I started saving money so I could buy one, eventually.   When I did buy my first new car, a 1981 VW diesel pickup, I proudly negotiated a cash price and wrote the check.  I think it was around $5,000.  Those were the days!  From then on, we continued that process.  We didn’t always buy new cars, but when we needed a car we had the money because we had always been making payments.  People say they can’t afford to save money but somehow they figure out how to make monthly payments.  Here comes the fun part of the story.

Ten years ago today, while deployed for the beginning of Iraqi Freedom, I decided that Peg needed a new car.  Her Mazda Protege was getting a little long in the tooth, it was a week from her birthday, and I was deployed for an “undetermined” length of time.  At the risk of setting the birthday bar too high, I went on line, contacted my local VW dealer, picked out a car, paid for it, and on 23 April called Peg and told her to drive out to the dealer and run an errand for me.  Needless to say, she was happy.  When I redeployed in July of that year I decided to also replace my car which I gave to my daughter Erin as a wedding gift.  Peg and I then had matching 2003 diesel VW Jettas.  Hers a wagon, mine a sedan.

For the next ten years I continued my normal habit of making car payments to myself.  I figured $300 per month, per car was an average payment so that’s what I did.  Now it’s time to do the math.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that after ten years, $600 per month/ $7200 per year, plus interest, adds up to over $80,000. Now that’s a big chunk of change but I really didn’t sit on the money.  I realized 5 years ago that I could take part of that money and pay off my mortgage, and that’s what I did.  But, I thought, I had always managed to make the house payments so, like the car payments, I continued making house payments, to myself.  In the end, I was able to retire, when I did, because of a 66 Studebaker.

I know my parents always felt bad about not being able to help more with our college costs, but that gift of a 1966 Studebaker has paid for far more than they could have ever imagined.  Enjoy your kitchen Mom!

Postlogue:

Now I know there are some of you who just HAVE to have a new car under you at all times.  I’ve heard the reliability arguments, the long term repair costs arguments.  Here’s my response.  You have to pick the right car in the first place, maintain it, and not drive it like a bat out of hell.  We’ve put over 300,000 miles on our VWs.  We’ve averaged just over 42 miles per gallon.  That’s 7,143 gallons of fuel.  If we had bought a car, and let’s be generous, that averaged 24 miles per gallon, that would be 12,500 gallons.  That’s a difference of 5,357 gallons.  Even assuming that diesel fuel costs 10% more than gas (because of taxes!) That adds up to over $12,000 in fuel savings alone and we haven’t spent anywhere near that in repairs and maintenance.  Are we going to buy new cars any time soon?  I don’t think so.  I’d like to keep driving the Jettas for another four years, but then I’m going to need some advice on which really expensive cars to buy.  Or maybe we’ll just get something used and reliable and start a grandchildren college fund!

Delayed gratification is always more rewarding and meaningful.  A good lesson whether it’s cars or wedding nights!