EP 128: Cars & Safety, Long-Term Thinking in Daily Survival

What's in store for you:

1. Photo From My Life
2. Financial Thought: Cars & Safety
3. Life Thought: Long-Term Thinking in Daily Survival
4. Good Sh*t: Turkey Rachel

Photo From My Life:

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I'll tell you what I see, even if the answer is that you're in good shape.

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Financial Thought:

Cars & Safety: I drove down to Tampa this past week in my 2016 Mazda CX-5. I wanted to leave our family car with my wife, so I took the Mazda.

I’ve always been proud of keeping cars for a long time. Cars are depreciating assets. Buying a $50k car and driving it for 10+ years is almost always going to be financially better than constantly upgrading.

However, somewhere on the drive I started wondering if I was being penny wise and pound foolish.

Driving is probably one of the most dangerous things most of us do on a regular basis. At the same time, cars keep getting safer. Better crash protection. Automatic emergency braking. Lane assist. Blind spot monitoring. Adaptive cruise control.

So, if you have the financial means, should you actually constantly upgrade your car? I decided to do some rough math.

Let’s say you have two options.

Option 1: Buy a $50k car and drive it for 10 years.

This car would be the safest available option for the first two years and then wouldn't be as safe for the next 8 years as new technology is released.

If the car is worth ~$10k after 10 years, you’ve lost $40k to depreciation. There’s also an opportunity cost to having your money tied up in the car. If I assume a 5% return on that capital, the total economic cost is somewhere around $55k over 10 years.

That’s obviously simplified. Maintenance will increase as the car gets older, but we’ll ignore that for now.

Option 2: Always drive a new car.

Instead of buying, you lease a new ~$50k car every three years. When the lease ends, you turn it in and get whatever the newest and safest version is.

Using some rough assumptions, that lease should cost around $750 per month. Over 10 years, that’s ~$90k. In other words, constantly having a new car costs somewhere around $35k more over 10 years.

That’s ~$3,500 per year. Or about $290 per month.

Now that we have the numbers, the question gets more interesting. Would you pay $290 per month to always have the latest safety technology protecting you and your family?

Obviously, a three-year-old car doesn’t suddenly become unsafe. The newest car isn’t guaranteed to save your life. And there’s probably a point of diminishing returns where the safety improvements from one model year to the next are tiny.

But money is ultimately supposed to improve your life. Safety seems like a pretty damn good thing to spend it on.

I still don’t think I’m going to start leasing a brand-new car every three years. However, I’m starting to question whether driving a car for 10-15 years is actually the financially optimal decision for someone who can comfortably afford to upgrade.

Like most things, the answer is probably a balance. Buy a very safe car. Drive it for 5-7 years. Upgrade as safety technology meaningfully improves. You’re going to lose more money to depreciation, but the hit to your net worth is probably worth it.

Life Thought:

Long-Term Thinking & Daily Survival: Life is a weird mixture of hand to hand combat and a marathon.

Some days, I'm just trying to survive until bedtime. Other times, I'm grinding towards something that will take 5+ years to actually accomplish. This balance between daily survival and long term thinking is challenging and I constantly feel like I'm failing.

I’m convinced life is a bit like a to-do list. You spend the entire day trying to get to the bottom of it. You answer the emails. Finish the project. Make the call. Workout. Get the kids to bed. Finally, you cross off the last item and feel accomplished.

Then you wake up tomorrow and there’s another to-do list. I'll be the first to admit, I’m addicted to this cycle. I love being productive. I love building things. I love the feeling of getting stuff done.

But, as I've had kids, I’m realizing there’s a danger in living this way. You can spend your entire life trying to get somewhere and completely miss the fact that you’re already there.

My instagram (yes, I know I need to quit) fed me this video and I'd be lying if I didn't tear up a little bit.

So, I’ve been trying to get better at being present in my own life. Since I had no idea where to start, I did what any reasonable person does in 2026 and asked AI.

I’ve been testing some of its recommendations, but I'd love to hear any thoughts that you have. How do you stay present? Candidly, just watching this video before my kids get home from school everyday might be the most effective route.

I’m never going to stop hustling. Frankly, I don’t want to. I like working hard and helping clients. But, I also don’t want to spend 10 years running a marathon only to realize I never looked around.

Good Sh*t:

Turkey Rachel: I’m a big sandwich guy. However, I recently realized that I'm finally willing to admit my favorite sandwich no longer includes pesto...... WHAT?!

I have been overlooking one of the greatest sandwiches ever created. The Turkey Rachel. If you’re not familiar, it’s essentially a Reuben with turkey instead of corned beef and coleslaw instead of sauerkraut. Add some Swiss cheese, Russian dressing, and toasted rye bread and you’ve got yourself an unbelievable sandwich.

You're welcome.

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