I drive a 2014 Subaru Forester. I run a financial firm, I did fine in tech, and I could go buy something a lot shinier tomorrow. I haven't. People assume it's because I'm cheap. It's the opposite — it's one of the most deliberate money decisions I've made.

Let me explain, because the reasoning matters a lot more than the car.

The question you're actually asking

When you're eyeing the new SUV — let's say a $90,000 Rivian — the question in your head is "can I afford the payment?" On a tech salary, the answer is almost always yes. So you buy it.

But "can I afford it?" is the wrong question. The right one is: what is this actually costing me? And the number on the window sticker is the smallest part of the answer.

My real numbers: Forester vs. Rivian

Here's the honest comparison. My paid-off Forester costs very little to keep on the road. A $90K luxury SUV isn't just $90K — it's the purchase, plus higher insurance, plus registration, plus the depreciation that quietly eats a big chunk of the value in the first few years.

Call the real difference, all-in, somewhere around $80,000 over the years I'd own it. (Run your own numbers — that's the entire point of the exercise.) That's not a rounding error. That's a number with consequences.

What that money turns into

Here's the part that changed how I think about every purchase. That $80,000 isn't gone — it's redirected. Invested over a couple of decades at reasonable growth, $80,000 can become three or four times that by the time you'd want to stop working.

So the real price of the nicer car isn't $80,000. It's closer to a quarter-million dollars of future net worth — and the year or two of work-optional life that money would have funded. The Forester isn't saving me money. It's buying me time.

That's the trade nobody prints on the sticker: this car, or a piece of your future freedom.

This is not about deprivation

I want to be clear, because this gets misread constantly. I am not telling you to be miserable, drive a car you hate, and white-knuckle your way to retirement. That's a bad way to live, and it isn't what I do.

Money is a tool to build the life you want — not a number to obsess over. I spend freely on the things that actually matter to me: trips with my family, days on the mountain, experiences my kids will remember long after I'm gone. Memory dividends. Those are worth every dollar.

The car just isn't one of those things for me. A status symbol in the driveway doesn't make my life better, so I don't buy it — and I move that money toward the stuff that does.

The framework you can use on anything

You don't have to drive a Forester. The point isn't the car — it's the question. Before any big purchase, swap "can I afford this?" for two better ones:

Does this genuinely make my life better, or am I buying it for how it looks? And what is it really costing me — not in dollars, but in time and freedom down the road?

Sometimes the answer is "yes, absolutely, buy it," because it brings you real joy. Sometimes it's "this is a quarter-million dollars and a year of my life for something I'll stop noticing in a month." The framework works on cars, houses, watches — all of it.

That's the whole game: spend lavishly on what you love, cut hard on what you don't, and point the difference at the life you actually want. I'm a fee-only fiduciary — I don't make a dime on what you drive or what you buy. My only job is helping you aim your money at your real goals.

Curious what your version of the Forester-vs-Rivian math looks like? Book a Clarity Call. Let's find the spending that's quietly costing you years — and the spending that's worth every penny.

Educational only — not personalized financial advice. Investment growth figures are illustrative and not guaranteed; your results will differ.