[S I M T A N]

More important is whether u own a car..

For people like you, cars have snob appeal but from an economic perspective, cars are a bad buy, esp here in SG where they are a depreciating asset. A financial guru who became wealthy by shrewd investment of his money in the financial markets shared that buying a car is a surefire way to lose money. He added that the money spent on a car could be put to better use by investing in something else that might yield a good return on your investment or retirement portfolio. Because buying a car ran counter to his investment strategy and to his all-consuming passion to make money, he would never buy a four-wheeler even though he could easily afford  to purchase a super car. For now he's content to take public transport and PH vehicles to get around, thank you.

Different people have different notions about the economics of buying a car. I don't know what's your thinking on this. For me, I consider a car to be a costly big-ticket item with no investment value. Scouting around for a new car was a pleasurable experience. I could afford a luxury continental car but that would entail paying higher depreciation, operational, maintenance and other costs. I was unwilling to cough up such wasteful expenditures. After all, my purpose of driving is to get from point A to point B, without ostentation. So I started to look for a happy medium between a big, fancy car with high maintenance costs and a small cheapo car with that cheap looks. In the end, I managed to strike a happy medium between affordability and luxury by choosing an inexpensive, run-of-the-mill Japanese car based on its practicality and reliability - not style - and after estimating the car's depreciation.