When I hit 17 and bought my first car, an older and wiser person said “Cars will make you poor.” Yes, they can suck up money. However, they don’t have to. Change the way you think about buying cars and you can actually reduce the cost of your motoring – and maybe even make a profit.
Indeed, after I was told that, I made a decision never to lose money on cars. As a teenager I would buy a car, run it for a while, tart it up, then sell it again. And I always made a profit.
This happy turn of events changed when I got married and got involved in houses and children. Now I transferred my car buying philosophy to houses – we bought rundown houses, restored them and sold them at a profit, allowing us to work our way up the property ladder without being shackled to a massive mortgage.
As for cars, well I ended up buying newish cars for practical purposes and was shocked to have to sell them at a loss. It just didn’t seem right.
Then I discovered Porsche 911s and found that, once again, I could run a car without suffering depreciation. Hurrah!
The secret is to treat your car purchases as you would a house purchase. After all, you don’t trade-in your house every few years when it gets scruffy, do you?
I explain how to do this in detail in my self-help eBook You Can Drive a Porsche.
And if Porsches aren’t your thing? Not a problem, you can use the same philosophy to drive an Aston Martin, Morris Minor or even an old Volvo estate if you want. The key thing is to get out of the downward spiral of wasting money on cars.
This Post Has 3 Comments
This is a really interesting way of looking at it, now if I can only convince my wife
I’ve just sold my beloved Cayman S, which excluding running costs has cost me about a £1 a mile. Sadly a victim of the recession in terms of resale value. (still glad to have had it though!)
However, buying it now would be a bargain. On the other hand I’ve bought a BMW Touring which was an amazing deal. So I guess depreciation can work both ways!
You’ll have to get another Porsche one day! 🙂