My wife's cousin's son, let's call him Todd, recently bought up a 2018 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon just like this one and he was gushing with pride as he showed it off to me when we met up at Corvettes at Carlisle last weekend. He had rolled the top back before we took the long drive along I-81 in P-A back to where they live in York.
I found the top-down experience to be less than exponential, the vehicle's ride was bouncy, old-school trucky and crude. I didn't tell him that, of course. He's a good kid and I don't make a habit of raining on someone's parade and bursting their bubble. Besides, some people like that rugged, primitive ride. I know he certainly does.
When I asked him what happened to the 2012 Dodge Charger he had prior, he said the engine developed a knock, and rather than drop the $1,500 to fix it, he decided to get the Wrangler instead. I kept my mouth shut.
He's twenty-five and makes less than $40,000 as an EMT. The Wrangler ran him $50,000. Say fifty-thousand-dollars real slow and it sounds like even more. Holy. Smokes. Dave Ramsey is rolling in his grave. I know, if he was dead which he most certainly is not.
Todd lives with his mother and has few expenses, so I guess on paper, he can afford what I estimate to be around a $900-a-month payment for it. But just because he can afford something doesn't mean he should have bought it. And while he's an adult, albeit a young one, I'm saddened to some degree that no grown up dissuaded him from making such an incredibly expensive purchase. Then again, perhaps someone did, and he ignored them. I never brought up that subject to his mother, so I'll never know.
It's none of my business anyway.
When I worked briefly for CarMax in Dallas years ago, I quickly learned that our job as salespeople was not to be financial consultants, but rather to quickly figure out ways to get people into the vehicle they wanted. Whoc cares if the purhcase leads them to financial ruin? And we had to do so as quickly as possible before their better sense caught up with them.
What should Todd have done instead? Obvious to me he should have fixed the Charger or sold it to me on the cheap so I could have had it fixed, but what I would have done is not what most people would do. Frankly, he should have fixed the Charger and stockpile cash as long as he could. Certainly, there are better things to spend money on than a depreciating asset like a car, truck or whatever these things are. He could have paid off the repair on the Charger in no time.
I don't know where my sense of financial frugality comes from. I grew up the most financially challenged, if impoverished of anyone I knew; therefore, I should be a spend thrift, right? Thing is, I've always been good if not great with money and to this moment I still hold fast to the prudence that you need to put money away. My brothers, on the other hand, are spend-a-holics, neither can hold onto a dime. My wife's sisters are like that too although they grew up in the lap of luxury compared to my brothers and me. Lucky for me, my wife bought into my pragmatic lifestyle years ago.
My wife's cousin and her two sons had and have their hardships. Todd mentions quite often how "poor" they are. Perhaps he feels he's way past due to have something so extravagant.
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