Cars and online budget tools

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Hi Everyone, my name is Scott and I have a problem. I like to changing out my cars. To prove it, here are my cars since 2015:

VW Golf TDI

VW Golf Sportwagen

VW Bettle

Porsche 911 C4S

Porsche Cayenne TDI

Lincoln Towncar

Chrysler Pacifica

Honda Odyssey

Kia K900

Toyota Highlander Hybrid

Most of the vehicles were used so my losses on them weren't as high as it might appear, but it certainly doesn't help to constantly change vehicles. For example, I bought the VW Golf Sportwagen for $18,600, later sold it for $18,000. It appears like a $600 loss to use a car for 8 months, but in reality you have additional fees and taxes when you purchase a vehicle which puts the total price to $21,200. $3200 over 8 months is about $400/mo for a Sportwagen. Again, not the end of the world, but when you're doing this roughly twice a year it adds up.

So that's my vice, I'm sure you have yours. Like a true addict I've promised myself I'm selling a car (the K900 is leaving soon) and I won't purchase another for at least 2 years. They say the first step toward curing an addiction is admitting you have a problem. When we're talking about finances it's very easy so see you have extra cash or credit available, so you obviously don't have a problem. This allows us to lie to ourselves about what we're spending money on.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant for poor spending behavior, which is why everyone avoids it. If you don't have an online budget tool linked to you bank/credit accounts, you should do it. I use mint.com because it's run by intuit, the same people who operate turbotax. They have experience protecting financial information and my main concern with online budget tools isn't which one has the coolest features, but which one should I trust with my data. Intuit is my choice, but you can use any other tool that accomplishes the goal. Get all of your transactions in a single app so you can analyze them. You'll find something surprising, we all do.