I kept the beat up but mechanically sound '74 Beetle I'd been driving, that I'd paid for in cash – all roughly $700 of it – instead. It did not have AC or even a heater (that worked). But it did not have a payment – and that enabled me to save rather than spend a couple hundred bucks each month servicing a loan on a depreciating consumer appliance.

And so I was able to save up thousands after a few years of working and holding onto a portion of the money I earned. Including the savings I didn't spend on a full-coverage insurance policy for an old beater VW. For awhile, I didn't pay a cent – because you could "get away" with not paying the insurance mafia for harms you didn't cause once-upon-a-better-time.

It is sound policy to understand that a vehicle is a depreciating consumer appliance. Like a toaster. It will lose value as soon as you buy it – unless it's a collectible car, in which case it's probably not a car you can use for daily transportation. In which case, you will need another car that is viable for daily transportation.

Like my old Beetle.

Not the viable part in italics above.

My beater Beetle was just that – and not much more. It was sweaty in the summer and in the winter, I had to dress like an Eskimo to keep from freezing. Even so, the windshield still froze and it was necessary to keep an old gas credit card – remember those? – on hand to use to scrape the ice off the inside of the windshield, while driving, so as to be able to sort-of see where I was driving.

It was rusty. It leaked when it rained. But the holes in the floorboards allowed the water to drain.

One time, the hood flew up while I was driving – and I could no longer see where I was going. Luckily, I was not going very fast – old Beetle, remember – and so was able to slow down fast enough to open the door enough to see the painted lines and make it off to the shoulder and push the hood back down.It was a little bent, but so what?