The Frugalwoods Fleet-O-Vehicles

Let me start with a quick rundown of what my husband and I drive our two kids around in:Four notes:

Depreciation: Use It To Your Advantage

Why did we buy such old cars? New cars depreciate at an astronomical rate and when you buy one, you bear the burden for all of this depreciation. The minute you drive a new car off the lot, it’s worth a lot less money because it’s no longer brand new.Conversely, when you buy a used car, you’re letting someone else assume the burden of depreciation and you’re capitalizing on the slower, more stable depreciation rates of an older car. I know I just said “depreciation” 89 times, so let’s pause for a dictionary refresher:Ok so depreciation is when something loses value over time because it gets worn out. You can see why this is an issue with cars what with their tendency to age and add mileage. Carfax offers this metric:The rate of depreciation is going to vary by make, model, and year of vehicle, so I’d say these percentages aren’t universally applicable, but they do serve as a guidepost.

Low Mileage Used Cars Are a Bad Deal

Wait, Mrs. Frugalwoods, I thought you just said to buy used cars!?! I did, but here’s the thing, don’t buy low-mileage, relatively young used cars. You’ll get hosed. Although cars experience an initial burst of depreciation, the key to getting a scream...

What About Maintenance? What About Repairs!?!?!?!?!?

Now that we’ve established a higher milage, older used car delivers better value, let’s talk about caring for such a vehicle. I know a lot of you are averse to this idea. You want a car that’s reliable, safe, and won’t require tons of maintenance. Well, so do I!This is the refrain I hear all the time from the chorus of used-car-doubters:Here’s the thing: you don’t avoid maintenance issues with a new car. Sure, there might be fewer issues early on and the maintenance might be more spread out, but there’s no such thing as a 100% maintenance-free vehicle. At the very least, you’ve got to pay for an annual inspection, insurance, and regular oil changes. Here’s the other thing: even if you drive it “forever,” you’re extremely unlikely to come out ahead of where you would’ve been had you purchased a used car to begin with (see depreciation graphs above).Since maintenance is one of the most oft-cited reasons for buying new from the anti-used-car contingent (and the anti-old-used-car contingent), I’m going to share the maintenance log for our 2010 Prius.Before we get to the log, I would like to take a moment to thank automatic spell check software because, based on the number of squiggly red lines in the above paragraph, I am a 35-year-old professional writer who does not know how to spell “maintenance.” Moving along…

You Have Car Maintenance Logs?!

I know, I know, we’re nerds to the core. The hard core, I like to think. My husband-Mr. Frugalwoods-and I use spreadsheets to quantify, compare, and record just about every aspect of our lives. What can I say, it makes stuff easier! Earlier this month, I mentioned that I maintain a spreadsheet tracking our household systems (septic system, boiler, propane tank, etc) and their maintenance/delivery needs and you all thought that was strange. You guys, I had no idea this wasn’t normal!Back to the task at hand: Mr. FW is in charge of our vehicle maintence logs. He keeps records on our tractor, both cars, his chainsaw, and the lawn mower. It’s not super time consuming to maintain these logs because we input the data after each service event. For ease of sharing these documents with each other, we use Google docs and sheets. Given this record-keeping, it’s easy for me to share with you all exactly how much our Prius has cost over the years. TLDR: not much.

2010 Toyota Prius Maintenance Log

As you can see, we’ve spent $1,108.53 maintaining the Prius since we bought it in April 2016. However, it’s important to note that many of these expenses would’ve been incurred by a new car too, including:This log does not include the cost of the tires...

Re-Selling An Older, Used, High Mileage Car: Totally Works, We’ve Done It Twice

Longtime readers might recall that in early 2016, we bought a 2010 Subaru Outback for $12,000.After living on our 66-acre homestead for several years, we realized we wanted a truck as our second car, so we sold the 2010 Outback in July 2018 for $9,300. This is a pretty modest rate of depreciation and proof that you can buy used and re-sell used and not lose all that much money.Prior to this, Mr. FW and I drove a 1996 Honda Odyssey minivan, which we sold for $1,000 in 2016. Prior to that, I only had one other car, which was the car I bought with my own money (for I think somewhere around $3,800) at age 16 in the year 2000: a 1990 Toyota Camry Station wagon.Oh yeah, I was cool. Actually, since I was in marching band, my friends loved the ‘wagon because we could fit all of our instruments in the trunk. As I said, super cool.

Higher Mileage Used Cars For The Win

In Summary:

What do you drive?