Really? All I see is someone who lacks good judgement when I read that article.
I had a Mercedes once and sold it when things got tight. Holding onto an asset like that when you're impoverished is just foolish. I can't imagine being unemployed that long either. I'd be raking leaves for money after two months.
Buying a car is a sunk cost. Once you own it, getting rid of it before it cannot be driven anymore is wasting money. Once she bought that Mercedes, once it got too old, swapping it for a newer used vehicle would just give her a worse vehicle that would cost her more money in the long run.
I am poor. I've never been rich. I have a few nice things because I force myself to do the math on things. Other poor people hate me and threaten to report me to "the authorities" for owning nice things because somehow I cheated to get them.
I may not own many things, but the things I own do what I need them to do, and will do so for a very very long time. What this woman did, in my opinion, was the right thing.
Selling only makes sense if you can actually profit from it.
I've run this beast:
http://pics.camarades.com/v/jacques/cars/golf/
From '09 to '11 and it had more than 300K km on it by the time I was done with it (and it still brought me back more than I paid for it...).
You have to be pretty sharp when you're buying them to make sure you don't buy one that has been maintained poorly.
Fuel pump and turbo are the most important things to check.
That car cost about $750 to buy and another $200 for fixes required right after buying it to get it through the 'MOT', after that it ran without a hitch for two years.
An American car is probably better for a poor person than any German car. Sure, you may have to repair it more often, but parts and labour are a lot cheaper. Even if it costs more in total, for poor people a large number of small bills are often easier to deal with than a single large bill.
The newer diesels have insanely high injection pressures, I have a campervan that has one of these engines (the 2.5L) and I really hope that there will never be a problem with that because it will make your $3000 look like pocket change if it fails in a serious way.
In a pinch I think I'd rely on the older and much simpler models rather than to go for one of these hyper efficient versions. They seem to trade efficiency in fuel for a much shorter life-span and a higher repair bill.
The government here puts an insane premium on fuel consumption without taking into account the effect of all those fuel saving measures on the total-costs over the lifetime of the car.
At a rough guess it is a toss-up, what you gain in fuel efficiency you lose in expensive repairs.
Near where I live, the advertisements on the bus stops say "USD 500 and you ride!" because a functional car means access to work opportunities, i.e. money.
Suburban America is a design error with grave repercussions down the line, but since it was designed by and for the affluent assuming multiple vehicles per family and things like bicycle paths and public transport are either not present or just about un-usable you're going to have a problem if you don't have access to a vehicle.
But quite a few people do not have access to vehicles today (for instance: children, quite a few elderly people, everybody too poor to own cars) so maybe it's time to start fixing this problem?
Two cars for every family is long term un-sustainable, and two cars for a family without income to me sounds like it is an impossibility.
Even so, there are ways to use only one vehicle, even in a family where two people are working, figure out who keeps the car with them during the day, either drop off the other at work or at the nearest public transport hub (assuming that one exists).
That should take care of the bigger problem. Having two cars when you can't afford your food is really not good.
I find their reaction a bit strange without further context.
A Mercedes is a reliable car if it is maintained well and if you're living on food-stamps and are unemployed that value will drop very rapidly because you can no longer afford to maintain it. Once it stops running its resale value is nil, so better sell it before then.
See: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/03/19/top-10-cars-for-sm...
Unless I missed something, I don't see where the author and her husband made any poor choices. Keeping the paid-off vehicle is prudent[0]. They were making a combined income of $120k, according to her, when they chose to have a child. Only after the pregnancy was her husband laid off and they couldn't have easily foreseen that the babies would have health problems. They bought a house but the timing wasn't their fault and it's almost impossible for a layperson to predict. In short, they discovered the true meaning of "shit happens."
0 - That's one thing people might want to keep in mind when they see someone talking on an iPhone while paying with food stamps. It's far easier to keep what you have than to sell it--usually at "fire sale" prices for quick cash--and try to replace it with something cheaper. If I ever lost my job, two of the last things to go would be my paid-off vehicle and my dirt-cheap unlimited data mobile plan with smartphone.
I've driven perfectly reliable cars that cost less than $5K. A 10 year old Mercedes in great shape is probably worth about 15-20K. Why not trade that in and get another "paid off" car worth 5K and a check for 10K?
I guess it depends on how you were brought up. I'd rather sell all my possessions at pennies on the dollar, live in a honda civic, and do odd jobs than take government assistance.
you cannot under estimate the value you place in things in your everyday life when you know you worked to obtain them.
I cannot imagine being unemployed and simply collecting money and assistance. I would take entry level jobs putting up groceries to bide my time, or be at the local donation center sorting stuff for free. idle time leads to an idle mind and that does more damage than about anything else I know of
But then again, I've always been the 'help yourself' type of person, my main reason for that is that I like to have some control over my life and government hand-outs rarely come without strings and can be withdrawn at a moments notice.
But for those that really need them it's very good they exist.
The trade-in, dealer value for my paid off car is approximately $2,100. According to Kelly Blue Book, the dealer value for a well-equipped 2005 Mercedes-Benz CLK with 150,000 miles on the odometer and in "very good" condition is $5,124.
> I guess it depends on how you were brought up. I'd rather sell all my possessions at pennies on the dollar, live in a honda civic, and do odd jobs than take government assistance.
I strongly object to the insinuation that my, or anyone else's, rearing was any less moral or righteous than yours simply because I wouldn't conduct a fire sale of my assets, make my family homeless, and forgo the social services that my tax dollars have paid for. Not once in my adult life have I had the misfortune of being unemployed, gravely ill, or some other tragedy, and for that I am both very lucky and truly grateful. My childhood was the exact opposite for my family and I'm thrilled that my parents didn't pack us into the Suburban and say "welp, that's it, kids, we're on the streets now!"
Not a 10 year old C-class, especially not a C230.
It's called a safety net because it saves people.
Not even close. The three Kompressor models in '03 were the C230, C32 AMG and SLK32 AMG. KBB trade-in values for those cars are about $3k, $5k, and $10k respectively and it is likely they had the C230 otherwise the author would have called it their Mercedes AMG.
Luxury cars are terrible at retaining their value. If you want that, buy a Honda Accord or Toyota Corolla.