We argue about this alot. My hubby drives 40K a year with gas at 4 a gallon here. No way are we buying a new 35K car to depreciate it down. Buy something in the 15K range and drive it til it drops.
His car has 250K miles on it. The air doesnt work. I am going to swap him my car this summer. I drive 14 miles to work and can do it without air. He drives 135 miles a day. Hopefully this will buy us one more year.
They keep promising that the train terminal will get moved to our town. In which case, he could drive (or walk) about one mile to the train, park for free and walk 20 minutes when he gets at the other end then reverse it at night. Now he has to drive 20 minutes to the closest commuter train station, pay $5 to park, ride 1 1/2 hours on the train, walk 20 minutes and reverse the whole procedure at night.