Figured I'd finish this post that I started several days ago before it's totally outdated...
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Let me just start by saying I'm fully aware that it is only because I have the privilege of being firmly in the middle class that I can even have such a "dilemma" as this. "What's the issue?" you ask. (No, no one really asked, I like the rhetorical device.)
Well, here's the deal. Bob and I are both quite uncomfortable about owning a new car. The phrase we've used is that we don't "deserve" a new car. We don't mean this in the sense of my mother-in-law who will sometimes use the phrase "I'm not deserving" of XXX. We're not saying that we have low self-esteems and believe that we as individuals don't deserve a new car. We're looking at it more as a societal thing. With so many out there with substandard homes and erratic modes of transportation, do any of us deserve to have a leather-wrapped steering wheel and lots of buttons and such so that one need not move her hands to turn up the satellite radio?
That's not to say that I don't appreciate having reliable transportation on one of the coldest weeks of the last decade. After having a breakdown last week and waiting for what felt like an eternity, I did think there might be something more fiscally sane in getting a newer car with a warranty, rather than dumping thousands of dollars into another used car and the subsequent repairs, only to find myself again sitting on the side of the road in the dark. (Yes, I fully understand depreciation of vehicles and all that, but I also understand that I'm a person who stops watches merely by wearing them -- I'm an anomaly when it comes to mechanical things and have always been the one who's gotten my money's worth out of warranties.)
Still, we do have a little bit of that "liberal guilt" over having something a little more than we need (or maybe a lot more) when there are so many who have way less. But on the same token, I don't want to be one of those people (and we all know them) who works themselves into a bitter old age where they've never fully appreciated what they have because they've been too busy trying to square up some artificial construct of what they see as their "debt to God."
It's not like God issues a bill and there's a bean counter at the pearly gates with an adding machine who's going to see if you've paid off your share. Well, at least, I don't think there is. But, still, I wonder what the going "do-gooder" rate is for a volume control on the steering wheel?
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Reject your liberal guilt!!!
Here's the way I see it: You and Bob are probably NOT the typical consumers in any sense of the word. In fact, I know this to be true. New car or not, you are frugal, and not wasteful, and you recycle. A LOT. You recycle other people's books, pets, probably clothes, and other household items. You are AWARE that you are privileged in class, color, and location. You are pursuing parallel goals to minister to people. Maybe, even to people who are dying. The people who need you the most. There is no deserving or undeserving. You live in a society where you need a vehicle. You live modestly and you live FAR from where you work. Owning reliable transportation is a privilege, to be sure, but unless you change everything about your life, including that you live in a capitalistic society, your choices are limited to new car or old car. Warranty, roadside assistance, or not so much. Consider it your contribution to the downward spiral of the economy.
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