Justifying wants as needs

I can't remember if I ever published this. It was written before my accident.  Enjoy.


I had some friends over last night who I consider great friends.  We have a lot of fun talking but unfortunately our time was limited.  They could barely squeezed us into there vacation schedule but I'm still greatful for them thinking of us and making time for us. As always if there is something that is bugging me I am going to share it on here and there was one thing that I have to rant about my good friends and of course it does have to do with car purchases. They showed up in a 2009 Chrysler Town and country. I found out during our conversation that they bought it for around 12500. I thought that was alright. It broke a couple of rules I have with my self proclaimed organization " car payments anonymous" which is if you absolutely have to buy a car do not finance past 5000 dollars. I did a quick calculation and said " so you are paying around 240 a month. ( a quick way to calculate a car payment is 18 dollars to 20 dollars per 1000 borrowed on a 60 month loan). He said not exactly.  We put a few upgrades that put the loan at about 18500.

First ofallWhat kind of upgrades did 6000 dollars get him.  I don't understand what he needed to get him from point a to point b for a higher price than what I paid for my van. It seems to me lately that there is alot of us out there JUSTIFYING our purchases as NEEDS when they are just wants. A vehicle for the family is a need. What crosses into a want zone is when your justifying mileage year and features for needs when you really think about it they are just wants.  We also are justifying reliability is why we are paying so much but although reliability is a need a reliable brand new car Is not.

I think I am so passionate about this is because I see these mistakes ruining credit and lives.  I see people continue to purchase new cars upgrading their houses or even buying a newer more expensive house and think that nothing wrong is going to happen but when it does and they lose their house over a car purchase that was too expensive then rely on society and church organizations to help them through a difficult time that they helped bring upon themselves then it affects the rest of us who thought about our purchases vs our income and made more wise decisions.