Day 23—Ordinary Gambling

Today’s surprise: my son needed some reliable wheels to get him from MN to WA this summer, so he bought a truck this afternoon! (And Dad was there to help.) A 4-wheel drive somehow seemed to match his upcoming adventure working in the mountains and rain forest of Olympia National Park. The big decision was… how and where do you gamble your money to get the biggest bang for your buck?

Do you Shoot the Moon by going for a truck, knowing that the gas mileage won't be the best, but the purchase price will be great (as in “cheap”) because they’re a dime a dozen right now? Or, do you hunt and scrape for the better gas mileage wheels that everyone else is also after, knowing that you’re going to lay out a bigger wad for that privilege?

He opted for the truck. For a college student money is especially tight. Mostly you don’t have any. So here was the next line of betting… do you gamble with buying an older truck with more miles but has a greater potential for repairs and break-downs, but seems to run well, requires only half the cash outlay as the other one, and leaves you with a smaller loan total after graduating from college? Or, do you gamble with buying a newer model, with half the mileage of the other truck, half the likelihood of repairs and break-downs, also runs well, but requires double the cash outlay and increases your college loan totals?

Or, do you gamble that your ’92 Saab might actually get you out there?

Okay, probably not. We both were pretty confident that his Saab was not the most reliable vehicle for a cross-country trip. What if it broke down in the middle of Montana, for example? That’s a scary thought. The closest Saab dealer would probably be in... San Francisco—or Sweden itself. We figured that the tow truck driver would probably just take out his shotgun and shoot it to put it out of its misery.

Tough decisions today. Either way you try to play the odds that favor your values and goals. It’s the ordinary gambling that most of us engage in every day of our lives.