What is the rudest thing somebody has said to you about money? How did you react?

“Can’t you afford to drive something better than that? What the hell is it?” (One expletive has been downgraded from that quote.)

The Holden Epica is tough to recognise, because so few have sold. It sorta resembles a Commodore from “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”. Or a Cruze beefed up on Hulk Hogan’s cast-off ’roids.

It was 2009, at the GFC’s height, and it was the first new car I’d ever bought. I only bought new because then-PM K.Rudd was offering OBSCENE tax deductions for businesses to buy new cars. This $30,000 new car cost the same as a $20,000 second-hand car.

Regarding cars, I’m happy to confess I’m a tightarse.

Cars are Earth’s greatest wealth-sucker. A J. Edgar Hoover for savings. On no other commodity have so many people, with so little spare cash, wasted so much money, for such pointless vanity.

Except maybe beer. (Lock me up!)

Cars lose more money on a daily basis than burning (or with Australia’s polymer notes, “melting”) a $50 note.

Simply, the more you spend on cars, the more you blow-up.

By buying more “affordable” cars, Mrs DebtMan and I have saved probably $150,000 in 10 years. We’ve loved our second-hand Lasers and Commodores.

I could afford a car many times that price. But I’d rather have the $50 a day in my offset account, buying investments, paying for my kids’ education. And funding future beer intake.

How did I react? When the “dude” made the comment, I looked at his car (a fancy Euro thing), laughed internally and said to myself: “since you bought that, I’ve saved $50,000”.

Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and principal adviser with Castellan Financial Consulting.