Financial Expert Saved $100k by Driving an Old Truck for 24 Years
You wouldn’t expect someone to work hard to get into finance, just so they can drive a decades-old truck. But that’s exactly what Jeremy Morris did. And for a sound financial reason.
Morris is a 45-year-old financial adviser in Coeur d’Arlene, Idaho. You might imagine a man his age, in his line of work, would be leasing a Porsche 911 as a flex. But not Morris. Morris admits he’s grown accustomed to his finance friends making fun of his old Toyota Tacoma. But anyone he’s known for long have also grown accustomed to it: Morris has owned the same truck for 24 years.
The way Morris figures it, the average person buys a new car every five years. Each new car would depreciate rapidly, all while you were paying interest on them. So even if you sold them whenever you bought a new one, you could be out $150k within 20 years. Morris owns his Tacoma outright. Even after spending $20k on maintenance over the past 300k miles, he figures he’s saved about $100k. That’s a lot of extra money, even more if you’re an expert in investing wisely.
Morris recently shared his experience, and his expertise, with the Wall Street Journal. Why? Because the paper was trying to make sense of the trend to keep cars for longer. Each of the past six years has seen vehicle owners keeping their cars longer. The average age of a car on the road today is 12.5 years. What’s more, 40% of the cars registered today are over 10 years old.
Want to buy a car that folks keep for a long time? When the iSeeCars website analyzed registration data a few years back, it found many makes and models folks were already keeping for 10+ years. Spoiler alert: Morris’ decision to buy a Toyota was probably a smart one. Here are the top ten:
Make & Model | Average time one owner keeps |
---|---|
Toyota Land Cruiser | 11.4 years |
Chevrolet Corvette | 10.5 years |
Mercedes-Benz SL-Class | 10.3 years |
Audi TT | 10.2 years |
Ford Expedition | 10.1 years |
Ford Mustang | 10 years |
Toyota 4Runner | 10 years |
Porsche 911 | 9.9 years |
Toyota Avalon | 9.7 years |
I will say the above list could be a bit misleading. Cars like the Porsche 911, Audi TT, Chevrolet Corvette, and even Mercedes-Benz SL-Class are popular sports cars, all offered as convertibles, that may be bought as “summer cars.” So it makes sense that owners would have them for years, but might not put many miles on them. Here are the 20 cars with the longest potential lifespan, ranked by the average odometer reading of the highest mileage 1% still on the road.
Make & Model | Top 1% Avg Mileage |
---|---|
Toyota Sequoia | 296,509 |
Toyota Land Cruiser | 280,236 |
Chevrolet Suburban | 265,732 |
Toyota Tundra | 256,022 |
GMC Yukon XL | 252,360 |
Toyota Prius | 250,601 |
Chevrolet Tahoe | 250,338 |
Honda Ridgeline | 248,669 |
Toyota Avalon | 245,710 |
Toyota Highlander Hybrid | 244,994 |
Ford Expedition | 244,682 |
Toyota 4Runner | 244,665 |
Toyota Sienna | 239,607 |
GMC Yukon | 238,956 |
Honda Pilot | 236,807 |
Honda Odyssey | 235,852 |
Toyota Tacoma | 235,070 |
Nissan Titan | 233,295 |
Ford F-150 | 232,650 |
Next, read about the Toyota Tacoma with 1.5-million “God-blessed” miles, or see more vehicles that often last into high mileage in the video below: