I read an article I really like on Lifehacker (side note - it's an awesome blog) on how to spend money to maximize happiness (http://lifehacker.com/5918864/buying-happiness). I read this article about the time I was starting my 5-month long car search, and it was constantly on my mind as I was looking. Just for fun, I am going to see how well this purchase scores on the article's 8 tenets of buying happiness.
- Buy experiences instead of things. Well, a car is a thing - no doubt about it. But there aren't many cars that come with more experiences attached than a Porsche, right?
- Help others instead of yourself. Next, please.
- Buy many small pleasures instead of few big ones. When searching, I seriously considered buying a much cheaper car and then spend money over time fixing it up so that I would have many small pleasures over time. I still plan to fix-up (or at least fix) Ella over time, so the small pleasures will continue. Hard to ignore buying the big one up front though...
- Buy less insurance. Ella's fully insured...I don't think I could take losing that big purchase!
- Pay now and consume later. I've certainly paid now and plan on consuming for years to come! Ella has a 250 mile/month budget to stretch out her life expectancy.
- Think about what you're not thinking about. The title of this one didn't make sense to me, but the gist of it is imagine owning the item and think how it will affect your happiness over time. Ella scores pretty high here. I love cars and I love taking care of things. Every time I open the garage door, a big smile crosses my face. So far, I even love it when I find something wrong with the car -- it's an opportunity to make the car better and generate one of those small pleasures.
- Beware of comparison shopping. I comparison shopped this one to death, but that was part of the journey. The struggle of finding the right car for you is part of the Porsche experience. I get their point though: don't get hung-up comparing meaningless specs or features. I don't think I fell in that trap -- there just weren't many 993's available to me in the first place.
- Follow the herd instead of your head. There's certainly a herd of people buying 993's. The 911 generations on either side (the 964 and the 996) are substantially cheaper for similar mileage and condition. Call me a follower :-). Especially versus the 996, it was hard to justify the 993 in my head.
