Okay. What the heck was I thinking? If I’d really wanted this truck, I should have posted the question to a “Get Some More Debt” blog. But no. Einstein here posted the question to a community of personal finance folks. The outcome, via comments, shouldn’t surprise me. Thanks to everyone who posted. I guess I knew the right answer but was hoping that, if I painted a nice enough picture, everyone would tell me to “go for it”. But, since all of you know better, you gave me good solid advice.
I have decided to suck it up and wait. A couple people gave me some input about buying a truck that is a couple years old. I would have considered that except that I want a Toyota Tacoma, and this year is the first year of their bigger body style. If I was to buy a couple year old Tacoma truck, I’d have the same problem as my current one. (Not enough room). The only other alternative for me is to purchase a Toyota Tundra. It’s a nice truck, but I hate the gas mileage on it, and really don’t need a truck that big. As for the commenters that recommended not buying a truck at all, I just can’t consider that. We use the truck a lot for working around the house and we don’t have anywhere to put a cheap trailer because our homeowners association won’t allow any trailers in view and I don’t have room to get it behind the fence.
Thanks again for the feedback. The fever has cooled. I’m in a much better place now. After seeing some presentations at work about the amount of work that is going to move around the globe, I’m convinced I should save every bit I can. The only thing that makes me feel a little better is that, with all the baby boomers retiring over the next 5-10 years, we’ll have a pretty large number of jobs that need to be filled, and I know just the guy to fill one of them.