Glad I'm not crazy!

Exactly, it's the AVERAGE part that gets me. All of these costs are high-ish but totally reasonable for high-end stuff, but to be the average means there are either way more rich people than I thought, way more stupid people than I thought, or the rich spend way MORE than I thought to throw off the curve.

Some of those costs man... 60k+ for a basement remodel? I'm not saying it's not possible or even not reasonable, but I'm amazed that that's the average.

As a couple who love to cook together and have three dogs, you have no idea how high both of those things were on our list :)

I feel for you ; we turned down a house for exactly this reason when house shopping. I'd recommend saving up 30 grand or so and making your kitchen bigger ;)

Eh, don't feel bad, I've done most. I've never rear ended someone at an intersection, but I did once on an on-ramp (I thought they had gone and I was too busy looking back at oncoming traffic to look forward. Important lesson — always look where your car is going). And I've never driven off with a gas pump, but the…

The question wasn't what part of the US is the best, just which cardinal direction has the most things going for it. The person asking the question wasn't saying that the northern part of the US was the best, just that there were more positive things associated with the word "north" than others.

I know. But it's an odds game, and the more miles, the more the odds are not in your favor, that's all. As a grown adult, I've decided my money is worth a little extra piece of mind. It's certainly a decision everyone has to make for themselves. But to pretend like you're not getting ANYTHING for your extra money…

And before you commenters, yes you lot, you know who you are, start making jokes about what a absolutely ridiculous name "snowboob" is, this what it looks like:

In new construction, there's not too much of an excuse. Some risk mitigation (I'd rather my basement flood than my second story), I suppose. And there's also space considerations if you're not in a large home.

Excellent insight, thank you!

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. That you're lucky? Great! I've had shitty used cars most of my life too. Some were relatively problem free. Most were not. Almost all broke down at some point. You can't blame me for "not maintaining them," as somoene else did, since i got them well-used.

Again, what does "last" mean? I've had lots of cars with life in them that weren't worth my time to keep "maintaining." I just sold my Subaru, which was running fine with 186,000 miles on it, but :

Can't find an image of the actual prank, but... if we can go fictional....

As I said in another reply, it's not the cost. If all you care about is the money you put itno your car, you are ABSOLUTELY correct. You're never going to "save" money buying a new car vs fixing an old one, because the cheapest new car loan in the world is still going to average more than a few grand a year, and…

Absolutely. A 100k mile car isn't so bad in modern times, but... things break. It's not the cost of those things so much — certainly spending even $1000/year on maintenance is cheaper than almost any new car loans — but the peace of mind of a reliable — and SAFE — car. Maybe that's not worth the extra cash to you,…

Yeahhh not many that would be a reasonable purchase for someone who needs a reliable vehicle.

I've had this argument before with people, but no you are not. "Budget" cars (basically anything under 20k dollars) don't depreciate nearly as quickly as people seem to think they do on the used market. To get an appreciable savings, you're going to have to get a car with a lot of miles on it, and every mile adds…

C'mon. I'm with you on the Juke — it is weird-looking and interesting but at least it could possibly be found attractive. That Fiat? Being ugly just for the sake of being interesting is not a virtue. Finding a way to be interesting and attractive is where the virtue is. Anyone can make a memorable piece of shit.

It was a joke playing off a stereotype, don't get your douchy hipster panties in a bunch.