3079: Why We Sold Our Fancy Car (the Acura NSX) by Mr. 1500 of 1500 Days on Financial Flexibility

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[00:00:30] This is Optimal Finance Daily – Why We Sold Our Fancy Car, the Acura NSX by Mr. 1500 of 1500days.com The Acura NSX debuted when I was in high school, way back in the 90s. It was my perfect car. I've always been a car guy. And the NSX was light, simple, normally aspirated, no power steering,

[00:00:58] great in the corners. Great in the corners, its chassis was tuned by one of the best F1 drivers in history. Reliable, yay Honda! And beautiful. NSX's curves still look great after all these years. But I would never have one. At least I didn't think that I would.

[00:01:19] NSX dream becomes reality. I didn't grow up with money. Most of the cars my parents owned were used ones when Detroit wasn't doing so well. My father's fervent, bi-American stance led to ownership of vehicles like the Chevy Citation.

[00:01:38] I remember my poor father spending many, many nights and weekends under the hood of our cars, trying to keep them going. Profanity spewed out of the garage. Side note, to be politically correct, my parents told everyone my first word was car. My mother admitted to me once that it was actually the F word. Anyway, the starting price of an NSX was about $60,000. I'd never have the money to buy one.

[00:02:08] I didn't have high expectations for myself and never dreamed that I'd amount to much. But then, my money insecurity led me to bust serious a**s for a couple of decades. It wasn't the right decision. But hey, now I'm sitting on a big pile of money. Life is good. When the pile started to get pretty big, I started casually looking at NSXs. I always talked myself out of buying one, though.

[00:02:35] I hoped that the desire to own one would go away. But it never did. So in May of 2017, I pulled the trigger. I drove it from Wisconsin back to Colorado. So, speeding down Wisconsin country roads was incredible. One of the silly joys of life is downshifting into a turn and then laying on the gas. The joy wears off. So, this is true.

[00:03:02] The pursuit is often more fun than the ownership of it. We decided to get rid of the NSX for several reasons. Number one, we didn't drive it much. We have three cars and barely need one. I'm vastly underemployed and Mindy mostly works from home. Number two, mental bandwidth. The NSX was in really nice condition and I'm a scrappy guy.

[00:03:29] I was always worried about nailing it with a tool or spilling something in the car. One day, I came out of the house and my children were circling the car on scooters inches away from the body. I nearly c***ed myself. On top of all that, it was yet another mechanical contrivance to maintain. Number three, we bought real estate. If everything goes as planned, we'll close on a live-in flip on Friday.

[00:03:57] If we didn't sell the car, we'd have to sell stocks and get hit with capital gains. Number four, I'm done with gas. Electric cars are an epiphany. There is beauty in simplicity. An internal combustion engine is a Rube Goldberg machine compared to an electric motor. I may never buy another fuel burner. Number five, no more joy.

[00:04:24] In the end, the most important reason is that it just didn't bring us happiness anymore. Sure, it was fun to stomp on the gas on highway entrance ramps and mountain corners, but those moments were few and far between. I don't regret buying it because the car is now out of my system, but I'm happy to see it gone. Money. We paid $45,000 for the car and sold it for the exact same amount.

[00:04:49] A friend who was obsessed with the NSX stated that I should have been able to get about $50,000 if I had patience. Normally, I would have waited for the selling season, which is the spring. However, we needed to come with cash for the upcoming home purchase. Had we held on to the car, we would have had to sell stocks and incur about $3,000 in long-term capital gains taxes. Even if we would have been able to get $50,000 for the car in the spring, we wouldn't have

[00:05:18] come out that far ahead. Plus, I wanted to reclaim garage space and mental space. Most supercars are notoriously expensive to own. Not the NSX though. It was up to date with maintenance when I bought it. So in the two and a half years that we owned it, I changed the oil every spring and I washed it regularly. That's it. Full coverage insurance was more expensive than our Mazda 5 or our Honda Element, but still

[00:05:46] wasn't too bad either at slightly less than $400 a year. Bye-bye, sweet car. My heart hurt for a couple of minutes as the NSX disappeared from view. But I'm glad we did it. The car should be owned by someone who'll drive it more than we did. The new owner is a car guy, so it's going to a good home. I will probably have a fancy car again someday, but it'll be electric. If I had to buy one now, it would probably be a Tesla Model S.

[00:06:16] Good examples of the latter can now be had for under $40,000. But we don't need another car. Mindy and I have two and we barely need one. So there will be no Tesla in my near future. Thanks for the memories, sweet NSX. I'm sorry that we didn't get to drive Highway 1 in California. I do regret that a little bit. I hope that your new owner treats you right.

[00:06:46] You just listened to the post titled, Why We Sold Our Fancy Car, The Acura NSX, by Mr. 1500 of 1500days.com. Not too long ago, I read an article from Doc G over at Earn & Invest, where he talked about how he uncharacteristically bought a Tesla, and he loved that car. Even after years of driving it, he continued to love it.

[00:07:12] But he regretted buying it because of how other people in his life started treating him differently, since historically he was very modest with his material possessions. He said if he could do it over again, he wouldn't have bought the Tesla. But in my opinion, his regret was driven by the wrong reasons. He got joy out of that car, but he let other people's opinions and treatment of him kill his joy.

[00:07:38] This to me is an example of why we need to foster our own sense of self-direction and constantly remind ourselves that other people's opinions of us are simply none of our business. The article today describes an entirely different scenario, and one that I think is a bit more typical. It's a classic case of hedonic adaptation, which is the tendency for our happiness to return to a baseline set point

[00:08:06] regardless of our circumstances, choices, or accomplishments. It's the main reason I choose not to buy a Tesla, because I know after the dopamine wears off, I'll feel exactly the same about the Tesla as I do my 2010 Mazda 3 that I bought for $6,000 cash. I see no reason to spend that much money without any additional long-term benefit. I can also appreciate how taxing it could be mentally to own expensive things.

[00:08:36] There's more pressure to protect these things because they're so expensive to replace. I have a lot of peace of mind with my cheap car. If something were to happen to it, it's not that big of a deal, as I only spent $6,000 on it, and it's easily replaced. And that's a wrap for another Thursday show. Have a great rest of your day, and I'll be back tomorrow as usual, where your optimal life awaits.