My goal is early retirement and I've been living without a car for the past couple of months, ever since my last car died and I decided to scrap it rather than pay thousands of dollars to only fix one of the problems with it. After living without a car, I've decided I really want a car. I could live without one as I walk to work everyday and can walk to the grocery store. However I would like to have a car to bulk shop at CostCo and drive to great hiking places.
My question is: Would it be better to get a "cheap" car (maybe around $1,000) just to get me where I need to go and possibly also die soon or get a "good" car (maybe around $5,000-$10,000) that would last many years. I have around $4,000 that I could put towards a car right now, so I could save for towards buying a car or just invest that money.
I've only owned 2 cars. The first I bought for $900 when I was 16 and the second was a wedding gift from my in-laws, so I'm not used to paying a lot for a car and I'm hesitant to spend that much on depreciating asset considering both those cars have ended up in the scrap heap. However, it would be nice to own a car that doesn't suck.