Hello everybody, it's Sam and Cindy from the Financial Samurai podcast and this episode I want to talk about a small epiphany that I realized and that is the difference between time and Car mileage because I have a Land Rover Range Rover sport and whenever I say I have a Range Rover sport inevitably commenters or people be like, oh it must have a lot of maintenance issues and you know, why are you owning that car because Clearly, it's gonna break down at some point Well, I have owned a Land Rover SUV for about 20 years now before the Range Rover sport I owned a Land Rover Discovery 2 for how many years 10 years?

It was a while and so for my Range Rover sport, it's a 2015 model I bought it end of 2016 so we're talking about almost seven years of ownership and during this almost seven year time period I've had the fan break So I had to fix that that cost about 700 bucks That was three and a half years in and now my coolant is leaking and the coolant leaking Maybe it's like a water pump issue or something.

I'm assuming that's gonna cost a thousand dollars to fix So that's not too bad because that was a three and a half year gap per issue Other than that is just change the tires change the brakes add the gas and the car has been very dependable for almost seven years But what I realized is that because I only drive 5,500 miles a year I only have about 43,000 miles on the car and a commenter mentioned something really logical and he said well Sam Do you think it's because of your low mileage that you don't have as many problems and I thought to myself well Yeah, that's probably obviously true But it's been you know, seven years with this car and 13 years at the previous car and you know I expect problems to occur Every two three four years is not so bad in my opinion because every year or every two years you need to do a service change Anyway, so on my dashboard, it says I have to do a service in 700 miles So it's basically been a little over a year and the coolant leaked gonna fix the water pump.

Okay fine I'm gonna fix it and I'm gonna change the oil Not a big deal because I had to go into the dealership or the auto mechanic anyway to get the car serviced However, here's something that sounds obvious now that I talk about it. It wasn't too obvious to me But if I had driven 14,000 miles a year My fan would have broken after a year and a half and then my coolant would have started leaking After about three years and if this was the scenario, I'd be thinking myself Hey, man Land Rover Ranger really is unreliable.

Why are there these problems that occur so Quickly one after another so what's my point? I guess my point is I had a blind spot that I didn't really think about Until a reader commented on the miles and the second thing perhaps is if you want to buy a luxury car or a nicer car It's best that you're not a regular driver if you want to save money And if you do drive a lot a more expensive car, you should have a better warranty than the average car So hopefully it's not just three years 50,000 miles.

Maybe it's four or five years 70 80 100 thousand miles, but I don't know if that's available. And the other thing is Maybe you do want an extended warranty. Generally warranties are sold because they are highly profitable for the auto company However, if you're buying an expensive car These maintenance bills do add up.

Here's something also interesting that I think is worth noting I remember when I had a car issue in my 20s or early 30s. I would feel a little bit more stressed out I was thinking myself man. How much is this gonna cost? How long is this gonna take? Well, I still think how long is this gonna take but I no longer think oh man How much is this gonna cost two thousand three thousand dollars because I'm older and wealthier now So if it costs I don't know two thousand dollars to fix the coolant leak and chase some parts So be it because not only can I afford it But it's also important vitally important for safety because I am the driver of my family.

So I feel it's a duty It's a must to spend that money and not mess around So if you're younger and you're wondering hmm, why are these people these older people with family driving such nicer cars? Well one One of the reasons why is because of safety they want a larger vehicle that can hold their children and feel more secure just in Case someone else bashes them and then to frankly the affordability of cars as you age It gets easier and it seems obvious but it wasn't so obvious to me when I talked about the 1/10 rule for car buying trying to limit people to 1/10 of their income in terms of the purchase price of a car because I saw the car as Such an extravagant waste of money where that money could be spent Investing in the stock market a real estate market and so forth at almost 46 years old with two young children I think it's vital to have a safe car and There is a high correlation with a safe car and an expensive car So the focus on saving as much money as possible on a car as you get older Really diminishes I feel Completely different than I did in my 20s and 30s in terms of buying a nice car And I think naturally so will you so the next time you see a middle-aged guy driving a Porsche 911 or?

I don't know a Ranger or whatever. I don't think it's a midlife crisis I just think it's kind of like well You can afford it now your net worths higher and you need a safe car to shut around your family So Sydney, what are your thoughts about driving a nice car?

now that we have two kids because you've known me since I was driving a 2000 a thousand five hundred dollar car in college. Yeah, and so what are your thoughts? Well, I've been really happy For the longest time I guess since kind of since the Land Rover started because the turnover of your autos Went way down right right and prior to that you were changing cars Almost every year year and a half.

Yeah, I think I ate cars in 12 years and and You know, I wasn't doing that much driving anyway, but I just remember it was this constant like what what am I gonna get next? I'm gonna get next it's just this constant thing and now It's kind of like moving, you know, we're not moving or hopefully we won't be moving very much.

We feel settled So it's like the same thing with the car You know, we've found a car that works well for our family that you are happy with Yeah that we feel is safe and reliable and we have other things to keep us busy and interested in right now That's a good point.

I remember in my 20s I was infatuated with cars because I always want a nice car, but my parents never drove a nice car in the 1980s We had a 1976 Datsun with no paint and no hubcaps in high school We had a eight-year-old Toyota Camry and then finally I was able to get a car in college, which was Toyota FX 16 with just wrong shifting gears and that cost $1,600 and I was really like a junky car, but you know You know, I was just thrilled that you had a car period that we could get off campus right explore Jamestown Road trips and stuff.

It was fun. We didn't need anything fancy. Yeah, and it's so funny as a guy I remember thinking oh, I need kind of like a respectable looking car to impress the ladies didn't matter to me I was just thrilled that we could drive somewhere. Yeah escape campus. That is true, right?

So and then like in your 20s, let's say you got a nice job. So I got a good job in New York City so I bought a car in Manhattan, which was in retrospect so stupid and then I bought An m3 and actually many g500 all these cars in San Francisco in my 20s Oh a BMW 5 series yeah, but the BMW 5 series was sweet as black and then it had like the Protruding screen flat screen and a huge subwoofer.

Do you remember that? Yeah, so I had the thrill of going on Craigslist bargaining hard getting a new car driving for a year year and a half and then trying to sell it for the same or A little bit of a profit. Yeah, you did very well with that, right?

But this is the funny thing as you get older you're like I'm over that stuff Less time what a pain in the butt to negotiate DMV the pink slip meet people pay taxes And it's just so interesting the evolution of car ownership over time Because as you as you can afford to buy a more expensive car You kind of don't really care as much anymore like this Range Rover Sport is 2015.

I want it. I want to own it until it's at least 10 years old provided that it's reliable And there's not a lot of problems because I know the car right? I know the maintenance history There's no, you know mysterious bugs that are hopefully gonna appear that we don't know about and that's kind of the same thing with Maybe upgrading to a house which we'll talk about in a new episode which I had written about There are some things that you might not expect whenever you trade something, you know For something you don't and I also think this car is very comfortable It drives well, like you it feels like a sturdy car when we've had that whole mess last year where we The valley damaged the car and then we had a flat tire and yada yada yada We had that rental car for two months and that it was a very different feeling car and I wasn't driving it But even as a passenger, yeah, just it was a very different feeling experience and it didn't feel as sturdy or stable It felt very like a boat top-heavy or something, right?

It made me think about we watched a lot of the f1 reality show drive to survive I have to survive on Netflix when Daniel Ricardo like the last time he switched teams He just couldn't get in a groove with the new car. I forgot which racing team it was Aston Martin, maybe yeah But yeah, I was just like Renault.

He went to Renault for a couple years the car and him They just didn't click well and it affected his performance where I feel like this car matches well with your driving I guess you just get familiar. Yeah any car just the way it drives way it feels So in that sense, I do believe the ideal length of time to own a car is about 10 years or maybe when the car is 10 years old and then start thinking about another car because think about it in 10 years every single year these car engineers and designers are thinking about things to make the car better because In a capitalistic society you have to offer more and more for the money Otherwise, you're gonna lose market share to other auto Manufacturers and so that's the other thing when people always make fun of me for driving a Land Rover Range Rover I'm saying look if it is that unreliable these cars I wouldn't buy it because I value my time a lot and the company would go bankrupt or really tank in Value because other people wouldn't buy it.

But the reality is the cars still sell very very well Alrighty, that's all I wanted to really share because it was just my realization Ah, the miles could accelerate the number of problems a car has in a shorter time frame Thereby changing your perception of various cars, but because we drive relatively low mileage 5,000 to 5,500 a year These problems seem to be spread out in a more acceptable amount of time where I'm like, well every three years Whatever nothing lasts forever.

All right, everyone if you enjoyed this episode, we'd love a positive five-star review Even if you did enjoy this episode, please review it. It helps us grow Please subscribe to our weekly newsletter at financial samurai comm forward slash news Please support our work how to engineer your layoff has been newly revised 6th edition for 2023 and beyond thanks to my wife Sydney It's got about 45 more pages of great strategy to help you escape a job You don't like with money in your pocket.

So check it out at financial samurai comm forward slash Yl and finally I'm doing a lot more interviews with people who I think are interesting and they're gonna be about 45 minute to an hour long interviews with authors and entrepreneurs and people work in big tech. So stay tuned I'm just trying to make it interesting mix it up because I finally figured out how to use the Riverside FM software to interview people and that's what I plan to do because there's nothing better actually than reading a good book and Then interviewing the author to find out what they're thinking because as an author myself I've been through a lot of these interviews as well And I just find it to be really insightful because I'm reading a lot more and I also love to understand How creators and entrepreneurs think so, hopefully you will appreciate these upcoming interviews as well.

Take care. Bye