until they take the keys away from me. For me cars are machinery. The VW will run all day at 80 mph consuming 40 mpg and go 650 miles between fill ups. Our house that we designed ourselves is 40 years old. Our splurge spending is on travel. Our last big purchase was about a million $ spent helping our daughter in law build her own veterinary hospital. We still have several million left. And once you have substantial investments, modest market moves mean big money. A 0.5% day in the market is 25,000 bucks in one day is you have $5M invested. The biggest luxury of having wealth is freedom from worry about money. And we are Ut Prosim Society members.

...in VA, and that will go up with the proposed tax increases. Just think what you could do with that tax money if you lived in Florida where there is no tax on income, dividends, interest, or capital gains?

based on withdrawals. We are of an age where we both must take RMD's and at our level the marginal tax rate is 24% Federal (plus we live in Maryland so they are even more punitive than Va vis a vis state taxes.). We pretty much can live on our RMDs but when we do have need for additional funds, we have a personal line of credit with a local bank at prime 😜. As for moving, we live in a very special place, 10 acres on a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay surrounded by huge mature hardwoods with no other houses visible in any direction during the summer when the leaves are on the trees. We were lucky to fall into it 40 years ago at a price we could afford then and there's no way we're leaving.

...a Dodge Stratus! In all seriousness, I own a fleet of old vehicles, including several that now qualify as "antique" in Virginia (25+ years old). I refuse to have a car payment ever again. And between doing my own maintenance and posting videos of my repairs on YouTube, I've saved/earned ~$35,000-$40,000 over the past 13 years. ** Edited by MP4VT2004 at 6/14/2026, 10:54:49 PM

Bought it about a year ago with 42,000 miles for $6000. Got it from a church friend who had to stop driving due to age. I am content with it. I don’t need a fancy car.

and bought a Honda Ridgeline. Hope to keep that 15 years minimum.

Bought it with 90,000 miles. Now has 155,000. Zero repairs. Just maintenance. Of the 65,000 miles, 40,000 have been reimbursed at an average of $0.65 or $42,250. I paid $22,500 for the vehicle. Even with gas, tires, oil changes, I’m way positive. My first marriage ended because I couldn’t earn enough to keep up with my wife’s spending. Among other reasons. Since then I’ve paid off $48,000 in credit card debt, college tuition for 2 kids, and currently have a net worth around $1.5 million. My amazing wife has done the same, so we are around $3 million combined. With 5 more years of earning until retirement. Sheesh.

You get worse fuel economy with the 4.6, but it will last multiple hundred thousands of miles.

Car. I worked the guy in the late 1980s-mid 1990s when he had his ancient Accord as an executive vp until he was promoted to CEO and had full-time security and only limos. It’s not that he’s a skin flint. He’s donated more than $600,000,000 to his undergrad and grad schools. ** Edited by Va AandM at 6/14/2026, 6:03:15 PM

Although one of them still has a 30 year old pickup truck and another is still driving his 20 year old Lincoln, so it's not like they're pissin it all away.