Costs of doing Business

combatentropy said:
One of these is not like the other :)

You sound disciplined, but throughout my life it has been drilled into me that you should buy cars used. A 5-year-old car has lost half its price.
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I am cheap too with cars. I just bought a used 2017 Toyota Corolla cash for $14,665.00 with 16k miles on it. A new 2018 with the same features would have cost almost $22k! Someone already took that huge depreciation hit for me. I average a lot of miles making the two documentaries I've been working on, and now that I am revving up my stock footage shooting, I'll be piling on a lot more miles so for me, a car is just an asset that is used a lot and in five years, I can sell for about $5k with 120k miles on it. So it will cost me roughly $10k to drive for five years plus gas, maintenance and insurance. Even that seems like a lot to me as I am cheap but it takes what it takes. The car gets 40mpg if I baby it, no batteries to replace like in a Prius and the Corollas are reliable as hell. Never buy a new car, that's for suckers as far as I am concerned. I sold cars when I was young in the 80s and IMHO, owning a car is just a necessary evil of life in the suburbs or living in the country. If I liked city living, I wouldn't own a car but I like living in the burbs where one must have a car.
 
I heard the same about new vs used cars, but it was one of our few extravagances. I think buying used is wise, especially now. Cars are so bloody reliable. Nothing goes wrong with them anymore. My current car is 11 years old and I haven't done a thing to it except scheduled maintenance. It looks like new and it feels like new. They are just so well made now. Back in the day, we were always dinking with the cars tuning them to get them to run right.
 
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My wife gets new cars when needed, but I am a little more frugal so only purchase used cars for myself.
At one point in my career I had a pretty good collection which filled the driveway and backyard parking pad. Audi, BMW, Range Rover, Ferrari, Lola T70, AA/Fuel Altered, among others.
Now we are down to my wife's new Subaru Forester, my 12 year old Porsche Cayman S, and my Mercedes Sprinter van with 400,000 miles on it, as we downsize to a much smaller house this weekend.
 
Depending on your role in production, you might consider doing a "business tithe" - put back 10% from every job you do and put it into a business savings account (or just set it aside in your budget). Then use this money strictly for "investing" in your own career. If you're a director this could mean funding your own short film. If you're a DP this could mean paying your bills for 2 months while you shoot your first low-budget feature with a promising director for free. If you're a production company this could mean renting an Alexa and vintage lenses for a non-profit commercial that has potential to be amazing but the organization doesn't have a big enough budget to take it to the next level, etc.

In production my experience is that people only want to hire you to do what you've already shown that you can do and for the most part the only way to get hired for something different or to move up a level is to put your own money (or extra unpaid time) into a project that will prove you can do it to the people that may hire you in the future.

I'm currently in the middle of this experiment so we'll se how it goes, but I know the production company Neighborhood Film Co. did this with their short film The Cage and I think it's really paid off for them.
 
It doesn’t matter if you drive the car into the ground - in that case a new reasonably priced car can be great long term if properly negoatiated at time of purchase - esp without financing
 
filmguy123 said:
It doesn’t matter if you drive the car into the ground - in that case a new reasonably priced car can be great long term if properly negoatiated at time of purchase - esp without financing
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Good point, but you can negotiate only so much off a new car purchase, having just done that and paying cash on my wife's new Forester.

But with a used vehicle, depreciation comes into play.

As an example.... Vehicles that were nearly $150,000 new can be purchased used for under $50,000.

That's why I prefer to purchase used, as much of the time the savings is unbeatable.
 
Right, but key there is reasonably priced new car. Talking about a $25,000 Honda CRV or something. Where depreciation has been problematic for people is buying a new car on financing, sometimes 5-7 years, and being immediately upside down on the car for most of its life. And then wanting to upgrade in 5-10 years.

Buy a new car for $25,000 and drive it to 150k+ miles, resell for ~$5000, meanwhile enjoying the reliability and sometimes included warranty for the first half - especially if paying cash - great way to go.

On negotiating, learned to never buy a new car above invoice price. Only below invoice. That's a game they plan and disguise numbers via holdback/kickbacks - show you an invoice and say they're at the line. Nope. Down lower ya go.

All that said - I've always bought used. Just was pointing out that new car purchases have gotten a bad rap for a very good reason, but in certain scenarios, it can absolutely be an ideal way to go.
 
And of all those used vehicle purchases, the Sprinter van was probably the smartest business purchase I made.
Just the perfect size for an owner/op. Add a 3 or 5 Ton to the budget for the bigger gigs when needed.
Super easy to re-configure depending on use, you can stand up in it without hitting your head, great fuel mileage, and darn near bullet proof.
400,474 miles on mine, and good for another couple hundred K miles. I researched heavily before hand with places that service fleets, and found many serviced Sprinters with well over 600,000 reliable miles. And believe it or not, once the turbo spools up it sprints pretty well for a van full of gear. :thumbsup:
 
Hot tip when buying a car. Be willing to travel. When we bought my wife's car in 2016, the local dealer wouldn't budge on the price. The dealer owns all the dealerships in the area and has a lock on prices. I got the silly idea to look at prices in other states for fun and found substantial discounts. When comparing the prices on Truecar, the prices were at the bottom of the price curve. That got me to look in a three hour radius and I found a dealer offering the same rock bottom price. I went back to the local dealer asking him to match it. He said there was no way a dealer was selling the car at that price. I drove two hours and got the rock bottom price. The dealer was a small place in a small town and said they set the prices at the bottom and turn them over quickly as people came from all over to buy from them.
 
That is a good idea and I have done it a few times here. Dallas/Ft. Worth is a large area but if you go to the fringes the pricing can be lower than in the metroplex.
 
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