How to Buy a Car the White Coat Investor Way

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After housing, transportation may very well be your second-highest expense. And for most people, that means purchasing and owning cars. The easiest way to buy a car is to go to the dealership, pick out the car you want, and pay sticker price, financing the purchase with a car note from the dealership. The easiest way is also the costliest way.

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Dr. Jim Dahle takes a different approach, as have I. First, he’ll tell you how to select a car, then he’ll tell you how to actually buy a car and get the best deal. Before we get into how to buy a car, you should know that my views may be extreme. Not quite Mr. Money Mustache extreme but extreme enough, especially for someone in my tax bracket.

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Why I Drive Inexpensive Cars

I am frugal with automobiles for various reasons. I grew up riding in and driving inexpensive cars that we worked on ourselves. One of the funniest moments of my childhood was immediately after a snowstorm when my dad, driving our Chevrolet Chevette, changed lanes through a foot-tall pile of snow and ended up with a lap full of snow.

He didn’t think it was nearly as funny as I did, but cars rust out quickly in Alaska, and the floor on that car had completely rusted out. It was now a Flintstone-Mobile. The best part, however, was that he then installed a board for a floor and we kept driving that car for a while longer after that incident.

I also like feeling like I got a good deal on a car. But mostly, it’s just inertia. It’s a lot of work to go buy something new if you really want to buy it well. It’s much less work to repair a car than to shop for, buy, insure, and register a new one.

So if it even remotely makes sense to repair it, I do. If it even remotely makes sense to keep driving it, I do. Because of that, I’ve had some rather remarkable experiences with cars as an attending physician.

For the longest time my daily driver was a 2002 Dodge Durango. I bought it for $4,000 in 2010. It wasn’t a great car and got lousy mileage. I don’t recommend you get one.

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