Raise of 3000-5000 yearly or a car?
Well, I had to buy a car for work around 3 months ago on a budget. I spent a while browsing craigslist and 90% were shady as fuck, most would refuse to take them to a garage to get them checked out at our expense and in one case had no license plate and wouldn't give us any details of the vehicle but wanted cash for it. Two weekends and a lot of effort wasted trying to bypass the traditional dealership model to save money, not recommended. That time and effort had value.
I was however able to find a stripped out old police car that had been excellently serviced (gov vehicle so routine maintenance on it) and had under 70k miles for $3750. It's ugly as sin but does everything I need it to and more. I got it from a one man "dealership" where the guy was buying, repairing and flipping cars but had surprisingly good paperwork and record keeping when the larger dealerships were more in the $10k range.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that finding a Mustachian car isn't necessarily that easy, the guy is making the wrong choice but I acknowledge I got super lucky finding the car I found for the price it was, if I'd ended up with one of the cars from the larger dealerships then I'd probably be agreeing with him that not having the hassle was worth forfeiting the raise.