Greentext

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This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.

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Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works

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Anon takes the horsepill (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 days ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works

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[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Cars are still the most significant expense in most people's lives after shelter and certainly the most significant in terms of cost per actual time used.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'd say food is a bigger expense for many, depending on how much they drive and whether they're paying the car off.

If you include all groceries, so pet food, toiletries etc, I'd spend more on groceries than my car most years.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Exactly.

I bought my current used car w/ cash, and it cost $10k. Gas in the first year would be something like $800 (45mpg, 10k miles, $3.50/gal for gas), and insurance would add another $500 or so. Let's add $1-2k for sales tax, registration, and maybe some random things that need fixing, and round up, so we're at $14k or so, or $1166/month.

I'm married w/ kids, and the USDA says I should be spending a little over $1k/month on food. So even in the first year of owning a car, I'd still probably spend more on food than the car. If I was single, divide that by about 3, so the car would be cheaper than food after 3-4 years.

There's no way a car is more expensive than food for the average person, assuming a reasonable car and reasonable food consumption.

[–] Jolteon@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago

Logically, any intelligent person who has money problems would have bought a cheaper, used car for probably under $5,000 (though how much under depends on area). The monthly payments for that would be minimal or non-existent. You'd still have to pay for gas and insurance, but those would be relatively small costs comparatively.