I received mail from the Chevy dealer last month reminding me that my pickup is five years old now and I must be about ready to trade it in for something new. Ha! My pickup has 58,000 miles, is running great and is paid off. Why on earth would I want to enrich them by buying another? Yet many people easily succumb to that faulty commercial reasoning. It's not just a matter of the oil turned into gas that goes into your tank. It is all of the oil that goes into plastics and tires and materials in the new vehicle. The energy used to prepare the metal and glass.

If I sell my truck then someone else is going to get the great value left in this pickup (and if I went through the dealer, they would reap a huge profit between what they give me and what they charge the buyer), and I'd get debt and only encourage the producers to make more.

Duh. Seems like a no-brainer. Drive conservatively and don't succumb to the temptation to buy new when you don't need to.

SRS