This is a short post but one I’ve wanted to write for awhile. I’ve noticed that there is a very strong desire in most people to not be taken advantage of, and while this can be a good thing, it tends to spill over into not wanting others to benefit from one’s actions at all.
I’ve seen this a lot on shows like American Pickers, where someone simply refuses to sell their antiques for anything less than the going rate, completely forgetting that the people who run the show need to turn a profit. “It’s worth more than that, I won’t take any less!” You’d think it was some tragic sin to let the guys earn a living from the work they do driving around the country trying to find these antiques. Most of those people will die in warehouses of their own making, and then their family will probably auction it all off for a fraction of the price anyway. It’s sad. Keep what matters most to you, but let the pickers earn their living, and have a few good conversations while you’re at it.
This past year, I’ve changed quite a few parts on my car. Most of these I’ve replaced with OEM parts, which are decently more expensive, but considerably better quality most of the time. But my car is also older now, and many people would be using the cheapest parts they could find. It occurs to me that if, for some reason, my car were totaled, all the money that I’ve put into these parts would be gone. Although I don’t speak that over myself, and I don’t believe in living in fear of it, it’s a possibility, and for this reason, most people try to minimize how much they put into older cars. But it also occurs to me that if my car were totaled, it means that several people at the junkyard would have very happy days when they come to find that many of the parts are in excellent shape and cost an absolute fraction of what they would brand new. If the car lives, then I get to enjoy a quality, reliable ride. If the car dies, then somebody else gets to enjoy the fruits of that labor. Is that not a good thing? As long as the car isn’t stolen, ha! And most of the time, your car is not going to get totaled. I think people shoot themselves in the foot on a regular basis by trying to put the cheapest parts imaginable in their car. It’s not worth it. Take care of your car. Buy the good stuff. If you put the crappy parts in your car, neither you, nor anybody you might sell the car to, nor the guys at the junkyard will ever benefit from this, and everybody loses. [This isn’t to say all aftermarket parts are bad, just that an awful lot of them are, and if you know what you’re doing, you generally know whether they are decent or not]
It’s also true that I really don’t plan to sell this car. It’s not that I will never upgrade to a newer car, it’s not even that there would never be a situation in which I might consider buying a new car. It’s more that I like this car, and it’s almost something of a hobby fixing it up and trying to make it “perfect”, which can be strangely addicting. I usually learn something new in the process, too, which gives me a lot of confidence feeling I could change these parts on another car in the future. I suspect that when the day does come to get rid of it, I’d rather give it away. Like, “Hey. Here’s this car. The suspension is practically brand new. All of these other parts have been replaced and should probably be good for at least another 100k miles. The fluids are fresh. There are no leaks [I wish]. I’ll sell it to you for $1. Just consider paying it forward if life lets you”.
I’m not necessarily committing to that, but if I were to upgrade my car in the future, it’s not like I could expect over blue book value just because I put OEM parts in it. All cars are slightly overpriced right now, but under normal circumstances, I might only get $2,000-$3,000 out of it. Which is a significant amount of money, but…how many thousands do I have, again? I wonder if just finding somebody who really needs a reliable car wouldn’t be worth foregoing that money, as long as I already had something else reliable lined up for myself.
Even with expensive programming books, I find myself just getting rid of them. I understand that I could milk some value by trying to sell them, but perhaps it is just a side-effect of earning a good salary that I’m not really interested in the hassle. Some might call this laziness, but I’d rather somebody just have a lucky score at the thrift store than have to deal with selling them for what only amounts to a few hours’ work based on resale value.
I don’t know. Sometimes you need that money, but if you don’t, I think there’s value in just letting somebody else benefit, even if that requires a difficult mental shift.