Ehhh while it is harder to buy things today, it's a bit exaggerated to say you need to spend over 20k to get a drive-able car. You can still find a beater from a private seller for 1-2k, or if you insist on buying from a dealership, you could get a decent car for around 10k.
Beaters often cost another 6-7k in maintenance just to run three more years. Planned obsolescence has been standard in car manufacturing for 20 years now.
Ehhh while it is harder to buy things today, it's a bit exaggerated to say you need to spend over 20k to get a drive-able car. You can still find a beater from a private seller for 1-2k, or if you insist on buying from a dealership, you could get a decent car for around 10k.
Beaters often cost another 6-7k in maintenance just to run three more years. Planned obsolescence has been standard in car manufacturing for 20 years now.
That's true. Unless you're doing DIY repairs with junkyard parts then maintaining a beater doesn't really work out in the long-term.
Doing my own car maintenance? In my garage? Attached to the home I bought for 75k in 1983?
Boomers are the worst generation in history, and it’s not close.
See comment my comment below. Having a cheap car means you need to have a place to fix that car/store tools/etc.
The more I think about it, a cheap car in working order is more of a luxury/flex than it looks to be on the surface.