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Comment by dllthomas | Hacker News Reader

"It's not even the monetary cost of renting, it's the time cost."

Absolutely. I'd definitely meant for that to be a part of "overhead" but it probably is worth calling out explicitly.

For most hauling cases, you can rent a truck/van from Home Depot for $20/hour or so. It takes about five minutes to do. Obviously that isn't everyone's use case, but Enterprise will pick you up, or Zip Car or even cabs is a valid possibility. None of these are all that difficult.

Not difficult on an absolute scale, but definitely more difficult than getting your keys, going out into the driveway and driving off.

So it depends on how frequently you use a truck as an input into the cost of owning vs cost of renting equation. At once per year it absolutely makes sense to rent. At once per day it absolutely makes sense to own. Many use cases fall in between.

Like I said, it's been falling. Transportation to/from Home Depot is time and expense. Enterprise will pick you up, but there's slop in when exactly that will be, and it still doesn't entirely remove the time to/from the rental car place. The nearest ZipCar isn't always available. And nonetheless, these might be fantastic options for most people. My only points were that overhead shouldn't be overlooked, but that it's been falling. If you look at it and determine that, for your situation, it's less, then great! That will be the case in an increasing number of situations; I make no claim at all about how many or few.

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