TheHusbandHalf and I had 2 vehicles for most of our marriage, until the accident 10 years ago. We were in an F150, which was demolished, and it was replaced by a truck in the car lot, a used Lincoln pick up (can't remember the rest of the name.) We used my van as a trade in.
I would be dead if we had been in a lower, or smaller vehicle. We have worked hard all 37 years of our marriage to be able to afford a higher, safer vehicle, so we will. It's not a status thing (like the rest of our lives, if someone knew us they'd know how ridiculous that idea is)
My husband is 6' 2" and I'm 5' 4", so we're going to have to really search for a vehicle that we both feel comfortable driving. It took us awhile to find an elliptical that we both felt comfortable using, we have already started with vehicles because we know it's going to take a long time. You see, I don't drive his truck, except maybe once a month 6 miles down the road and back to keep in practice, but I plan on driving the new vehicle.
I don't like pickups because when I turn around, I like what I see to be the end of the vehicle. He is willing to not have a truck.
We have always had a Ford pickup, always, and do use it. We still have a few trees to pull down. We pulled things, trailers, logsplitters, etc, but I don't think
we'll have much need for pulling anything but trees in the future.
Hearing about the woman on the Southwest flight almost sucked out of the plane reinforces my "I will never fly" way of thinking. We drove from Ohio, to San Francisco, up to Portland and back about 15 years ago, enjoyed it immensely, so when he retires in January, have plans to do similar road trips. We have flown to HA twice, and once to Alaska, so that's enough flying. The places we want to go now, we want to see the land from eye level, not the air.
We have lived long enough, frugally enough, to have a vehicle that we can do this in comfort.
If someone thinks we'll be trying to keep up with someone, or increase our status, they can be wrong, we don't care. We have not gotten where we are to do ANYTHING to impress someone else or worry about what someone else thinks of us.
There are winters (recent) where we want something that will do well in the snow. We live in a small town, out if the middle of rural nowhere, and at the edge of the county that is the last place to get plowed. Some roads have 12' deep drainage ditches on one side and people with vehicles that can do so, go around and pull out smaller vehicles that have slid into one. It's just something we do around here.
TheHusbandHalf, even as a retiree, gets charged the dealer's cost at Ford because of an agreement his employer has with Ford. There are other vehicle companies that do the same. I'm sure that will limit our choices, but oh well, as long as we know the limits going in, we'll adjust.
Lincoln is on the list so we are seriously looking at them, on paper only. Some time we will visit the dealer to see them in person.
