<p>Laserbrother-According to a previous thread, you reported that you earn $120,000 a year.</p>
<p>For you to state that you are “poor” is hyperbole and distracts from whatever point you are trying to make.</p>
<p>One of the nice things about CC, is that our income/position isn’t relevant to our post count For someone who earns more than the average American and certainly has accumulated savings well above many families( not many people have $150K in checking account- we have $800.00), saying you are “poor”, is like Halle Berry complaining that she is “plain” ( not that she has- Im sure she knows better)</p>
<p>We all make choices what we do with our money-
Some people are able to live close to their jobs- many others are able to work at home at least one day a week, which many are doing to save time as well as money.</p>
<p>Life is also worth much more than what you make or *even what you owe *;)</p>
<p>*Dh drives a Toyota Corolla stick shift. It’s about five years old now and he plans to drive it till it dies.<a href=“I%20miss%20my%20Toyota%20Corolla-%20I%20used%20to%20have%20a%201976%20SR5%20Corolla-%20it%20was%20%5Bcolor=yellow%5Dyellow%5B/color%5D,%20I%20would%20have%20driven%20it%20for%20much%20longer%20than%20I%20did-%20I%20had%20it%206%20years,%20but%20sold%20it%20when%20we%20had%20our%20first%20D,%20because%20I%20had%20been%20in%20an%20accident%20with%20a%20Mercedes%20tank,%20that%20cracked%20the%20frame-%20of%20the%20Corolla%20not%20the%20tank,%20I%20don’t%20even%20think%20it%20dented%20the%20fender–%20but%20that%20was%20so%20long%20ago,%20that%20I%20swear%20I%20remember%20filling%20up%20the%20tank%20for%20$6”>/i</a></p>
<p>My very first car was a 76 Pontiac Venure with a 5.0 V8. I could see the needle went down everytime I step on gas. The best I could get was like 13 MPG. That car costed me a total of $440.</p>
<p>I got my very first car last year - or I should say we got a used car, but it’s the first car that I ever had registered in my own name - a 2001 Chevy Cavalier Coupe. It had 33,000 miles on the odometer when I bought it, because it belonged to my brother, who lives around the corner from where he works, so he rarely drove it. </p>
<p>Once upon a time (BC), I drove a moped because it was all I could afford, both to purchase & for filling the tank (this was during the days of truly costly gas, nearly three decades ago.) It was stolen, and for a long time I had to rely on really awful bus service or beg rides from friends & neighbors (whose tanks I then paid to fill.) Dh drove a VW, which was also stolen. We owned a succession of cheap cars until we finally saved up for a minivan when our children were toddlers.</p>
<p>I don’t drive a SUV, but I wouldn’t feel apologetic if I’d decided that it was the vehicle that best met our needs. I do drive an old T&C, and it gets around 18 - 20 mpg (slightly more on long trips.) Now that our nest is empty, I look longingly at small cars sometimes, but at least once a month I fill the T&C with remodeling or landscaping supplies, furniture, etc. and am glad to have the space. I do most shopping online and minimize driving for other purposes, so my gas bill is not so bad. I’m finding it hard to economically justify buying a new car when my old one has only about 35000 miles on it, so a new small car will probably have to wait for another two or three years.</p>
<p>One of our neighbors drives the H3, so it can’t be too big since these houses have pretty small garages. I just don’t like the way they look, and I still think I’d need a stepladder to get in.</p>
<p>^^ I’m not crazy about the attributes of the H3 either and wouldn’t buy one. This model is quite different from the original H1 though so the generalizations about a ‘Hummer’ really no longer apply just as the generalizations about an ‘SUV’ don’t apply.</p>
<p>One of my mom’s friends had an H3 for a while. It only had a 4-cylinder in it. Her daughter made fun of her all the time because her Taurus had more power. She go rid of it after a year because minor stuff kept breaking on it and she had ticked off all of the service places in a 300-mile radius.</p>
For someone who earns more than the average American and certainly has accumulated savings well above many families( not many people have $150K in checking account- we have $800.00), saying you are “poor”, is like Halle Berry complaining that she is “plain” ( not that she has- Im sure she knows better)</p>