The Biggest Mistake of My Life

[pierso20]

I just wanted to say how even such a little thing touched me. It is amazing how therapeutic music is. And who can turn away from a young child asking where the tuba is!!

It goes to show that we all need at least SOMETHING to play on.

Keep us updated and I'm sure you'll get a LOT of responses about possible horns.

The morale? Never go without a tuba..at least SOMETHING to play.

[Nick Pierce]

There were a couple miraphones (188 or 186 I think) for sale on the forum for around that sum, don't think they actually sold. Best of luck playing again, thanks for posting, and welcome back.

[Rick Denney]

There is a Schneider Bb rotary tuba listed at Baltimore Brass. I haven't seen or played it, but it appears to be one of the old tall-bell B&S-made PT-1-style tubas. These are simply great rotary Bb tubas, with some likening them to Miraphone for the quality of the scale and Alexander for the quality of the sound.

For the sort of budget you are projecting, I think you'll get a more satisfying Bb tuba than C tuba. You won't be paying the pro-wannabe price penalty, and more Bb tubas were made for the affordable end of the market.

Rick "who understands the pain" Denney

[Jeffrey Hicks]

John,
I have a horn if you are still in Cincinnati give me a pm. I may have a temporary solution for you.
Jeff Hicks

[SplatterTone]

I believe that Allora 191 is still available. Info on tubatinker's web site.

[Nick Pierce]

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=29958

How's that?

[iiipopes]

Call Matt, Dave, Dan, Lee, Dan, Roger, bloke, and the other guys, even Vince, to make sure you get a good tuba that you can hop right into without a bunch of niggles or other maintenance issues, not just a get-by, for a real price that won't nickel-and-dime you later on with further maintenance issues.

Oh, yeah -- if all else does fail -- since you do have resources at hand -- 186.

[The Big Ben]

Jon:

If you have a true $3500 budget, there are many horns out there. You should easily be able to get a nice BBb horn for that price or less. Since you are experienced, you might not be interested in a 2340 King three-valve but those frequently go for under $1K on eBay and usually sold by vendors with long positive reputations. You might contact Dan Oberloh (http://www.oberloh.com" target="_blank). I know he has a few BBb tubas which need overhauling he could rebuild and sell you in your price range.

Your son would so love to go to TubaChristmas with you...

Jeff

[Tubaryan12]

When it came down to it, spending $14,000 on the Odyssey was by far the best decision. The reliability, resale value and safety aspects won out HANDS DOWN.

The Honda was a good move. I have a friend that bought one of those vans with over 250,000 on it for about $3000 or so. When he ran into a curb and deployed the airbags, after putting another 50,000 miles on it,they totaled it for $4500.

[Donn]

ON THE OTHER HAND...How in the world am I going to be able to continue to find good deals on good used cars if someone doesn't spend $18K (in the first place) to buy them new?

This is a conundrum. I can't believe anyone would pay the price for a new car, myself - but they do, and it's a good thing, because the price of old cars would go up for sure! Same goes for tubas.

[sloan]

ON THE OTHER HAND...How in the world am I going to be able to continue to find good deals on good used cars if someone doesn't spend $18K (in the first place) to buy them new?

NOW you have identified the real issue.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with buying a new car (or a new tuba). The cardinal sin is in SELLING a car/tuba that has been well maintained (you *do* maintain them, right?) for much, much less than it is worth (to you).

note: "what they are worth" is NOT equal to "what someone else will pay for it".

It is true that it can be difficult to buy new - this requires rudimentary financial skills. If you have quasi-religious aversion to financing (perhaps because past experience dictates that it's not for you) - then do what bloke does: look for suckers selling underpriced used cars/tubas and do what is necessary to invest a small amount of money/skill to make them more valuable.

I've owned only 8 cars in my life. 5 were purchased "new" and 3 were "used". All were sold at the same time - when they were useless to me. The new ones averaged 10 years of use each - the used ones less than that. I bought the used ones when I had more cash than credit. I bought one new for cash (meaning that I bought a car much less expensive than I could "afford"). The others were financed on very favorable terms. My current car is now fully paid for. Considering that the money I spent on interest on this car would otherwise have gone into the market, I'm probably ahead on the deal.

Now - this doesn't (necessarily) apply to tubas, but it definitely does to cars (and cameras, and other toys): one rule I use to evaluate a purchase is - will I spend more on "expenses" (gas, maintainence, film, batteries) than I am on the initial purchase? Calculate how much it costs to own and operate the car - for me this cost has dwarfed the purchase price, which (almost) makes the initial purchase price irrelevant!!!

In any event, by my calculations, I've spent about the same, per year of use, averaged over the life of the car on all of these - new vs. used doesn't affect the final cost all that much. Neither, it turns out, did buying for cash vs. financing. [note: that's EXACTLY how it MUST turn out if you are a competent player in a fair market]

don't forget the intangibles: some people derive value from owning and using "new" equipment; others derive value from the warm fuzzy feeling they get from "saving money". To each his own.

"lots of debt - but more than enough assets to pay those debts many times over"

[Alex C]

ON THE OTHER HAND...How in the world am I going to be able to continue to find good deals on good used cars if someone doesn't spend $18K (in the first place) to buy them new?

I'm in your corner on this but a real problem is that too many people now lease cars. A leased car comes back on the market through a dealer at an inflated price making it harder to find a great used car at a reasonable price. Personal experience: I also find that people do not take car of a leased car as well as one that has been owned.

Leasing is great if you own a business and can deduct the entire expense; outside of that its only purpose is to reduce the inventory of dealers and manufacturers. Avoid it unless you know what you are doing.

Caveat: Never buy a car which was owned by a rental company and titled in Hawaii.

[sloan]

2/ If I finance other things (stuff to eventually sell - hopefully at a profit)

I'm confused. Earlier you said "no debt - none". How do you manage to finance things without going into debt?

3/ Perhaps (??) in your world, buying stuff at market value - particularly when it is others doing so - is "mean spirited" and "predatory".

Please show the quote where the words "mean spirited" or "predatory" were used.

You are reading things that no one has written.

It seems odd that if what I do is indeed "mean" or "diabolical", that (here) I am trying to encourage hundreds/thousands of others to do as I do.

again - you write as if someone has claimed that you are "mean" or "diaboliical". I missed that. Who made this claim?

[Alex C]

again - you write as if someone has claimed that you are "mean" or "diaboliical". I missed that. Who made this claim?

Not that he needs my defense but, I think Bloke is just stating his opinion about purchases and cars and isn't flaming anyone. He doesn't seem to be on the warpath and doesn't seem to be quoting anyone, just talking.

I for one am glad to see him finally come out of his shell.

As for financing business purchases, I don't find that to be contrary to his having no debt. I understood him to refer to personal debt and it would be poor business practice to avoid credit when using credit might improve a profitable position. How do you think Charles Ives got so rich? (Well, it was actually a little more shady than that but let's not mention it.)

[Rick Denney]

3/ Perhaps (??) in your world, buying stuff at market value - particularly when it is others doing so - is "mean spirited" and "predatory". In my world, I make a point of buying as few things as possible for as little as possible that (predictably - virtually guaranteed to do so) will go down in value.

I think you are reading more into Ken's comments than I did. What he said was selling a car for less than it is worth to you is the big mistake. He also said that price and worth aren't the same. I didn't see where he said that buying at a low price was somehow immoral.

What he also said was to consider the costs in terms of the total cost of ownership, rather than just the purchase price.

And he said that in a properly working economy, borrowing money to buy a car should not be much more expensive than paying cash for it, if you consider the whole cost. If you pay cash, that cash is no longer available for investment, so you are paying an "opportunity cost" for using that money to buy a car instead of investing it. For a person who invests wisely over the long term, that opportunity cost should be approximately equal to the cost of financing. Most people, of course, pay too much in interest and make too little in their investments for this to be true. But even then, the cost of the interest is not as high as the price because it is offset by what one loses in not having that money invested instead.

For example: One might buy a new car for $30,000. If they borrowed money for four years, they might have paid $6000 in interest in addition to the $30,000, in actual dollars. But if those $750 payments went into investments instead, they would be worth nearly $44,000 at the same rate of return. Many times, new-car financing is so cheap that it's a better investment than paying cash, because the money in savings will make more sitting in savings than it would having been paid to the dealer.

When it's time to sell the car, the person should consider what the vehicle is worth to them versus what the car would fetch on the market. Usually, the first value is much higher. Unlike your used cars, the car I've owned since new has a complete and transparent history. The used car might be ready to blow an engine (which is perhaps predictable) or a transmission (not predictable), and the owner may not be equipped in terms of tools, space, or skills to make the repair themselves. And they really should consider the value of their time in making those repairs. If that was time that might have been spend making money, then there's an opportunity cost there, too. If it was not time spend making money, then working on cars needs to be a hobby, because that's what it has become.

There is also the question of daily reliability.

We buy cars younger in their life cycle for our daily drivers. Sometimes they are new and sometimes they are up to three years old. They ALWAYS cost more than $2000-4000, but then we don't live in the same area that you do, and there are NO $2000 cars in this area that don't have serious, serious defects (such as, say, water in the oil). We don't think of our cars as investments any more than you think of your house as an investment. If we trade them in for far less than we paid for them, so what? We got PLENTY of use out of them, and that was their purpose. Our cars typically get 25,000 miles a year--I work 30 miles in one direction and my wife works 35 miles in the other direction from where we live.

Your formula and approach works for you. But it is not the definition of "responsible", it is only one example of it.

Rick "who bought a Toyota pickup four months ago for $5000 cash, with 180,000 miles on it" Denney

[sloan]

Rick "who bought a Toyota pickup four months ago for $5000 cash, with 180,000 miles on it" Denney

How's the motorhome hobby coming along, Rick?

[Rick Denney]

Rick "who bought a Toyota pickup four months ago for $5000 cash, with 180,000 miles on it" Denney

How's the motorhome hobby coming along, Rick?

Que?

Rick "wondering how that relates" Denney

[Rick Denney]

To me, $5K is quite a bit to pay for a 175K mi looks-like-a-truck . Admittedly (after I fixed it all up to like-new appearance) I have over $6K in my Chevy, but (again) it's a Chevy, has hi-lo 4WD, and a newly-rebuilt (absolutely runs like new) 350 with a 4-bolt main.

So, you paid more for a truck of basically the same size and features that is likely to have less remaining life.

Rick "suggesting that a 350 is a very old-school engine with an expected life of 100,000 miles, if rebuilt absolutely to manufacturer specs, which is, by the way, impossible" Denney

P.S. I once owned a GMC C1500, a Ford F150, and this is my second Toyota truck. When it comes to reliability, off-road capability, ground clearance, durability, and economy, I'll take the Toyota any day. When it comes to highway comfort, I'll take the GMC/Chevy. When it comes to the Ford, you can have it. I drove that Toyota up to Lake Ontario a couple of months ago, and wouldn't hesitate to drive it anywhere. But I would expect, in daily commuting, to show signs of its age in reliability. You haven't driven 30 miles one-way to work every day since I've known you, heh, heh. Don't underestimate the demand that makes on a vehicle.

[jeopardymaster]

Jon - hi neighbor (if you're still in the Cinti area, that is). When you see Dan, be sure to look at his St Pete as well. I am not at all high on the brand, but his is extra special. As is his 186. And I am sure you will find, as I have, that he is a consummate pro and a fine gentleman.

Also - if you ever feel the need to play some duets, drop me a line.

[jonesbrass]

tuba

Indeed. Tuba. Lots of good used ones in your price range. That's what I'd look for.