How do people afford this stuff??

Hard work, saving up, credit cards, bonus money, tax returns. inheritance money, and probably other things I'm not thinking of. It mostly depends on what your priorities/goals are and how you are willing to go about accomplishing those goals.

 

I am very fortunate to be able to work from home. This also allows me to use my off time to do side hustles. One of them is purchasing hype sneakers and brand name clothing. I resell it at ridiculous prices because people out there are willing to pay for it. It's crazy that the kids these days will pay $300 for a $48 shirt or $1200 for a $160 sneaker (these are just extreme examples not all items sell for this much but I do look for at least a 50% ROI before selling most items). I think some other members of TW also do this too. I am currently holding onto 6 sneakers that I'm going to sell to upgrade to an ICON or KING suspension.

I also DJ small gigs every now and then. It's a pretty useful skill. Charge $250-500 for 4 hours of playing music is cake.

That's how I afford my truck parts and world travels.

 

I went to college and now work A LOT of overtime \m/ I'm mostly trying to build my truck up (slowly mind you) so that way I can take it "overlanding". Really I just wanna take it out in the woods sleep in a tent hike around places and then drive home. But my main logic in upgrading it is to make me more inclined to use it, With a new truck If hit the front bumper on a stump stock id probably shit myself, but if I hit like a giant ass arb, my dream bumper, I would kinda shrug it off and keep trucking. Its not like my old 92 toyota pickup where it didnt matter what happened... gotta make this truck last at least 20 years

 

I work ALOT of overtime but mainly to provide for my family, I get around 40 hours overtime every two weeks. I slowly buy things for my truck but I usually buy things if there is a sale or promo of some sort. Very rare I pay full price for an item for my truck.

 

Alfa was done selling cars in the US about 1993-94 all of those cars sold were 164 and a few spiders.
The GTV was made from 1966-1974,the Alfetta GT came after that and was made till 1979 followed by the GTV-6 in the mid 80's.
So I'm not understanding where you got your numbers.

I'm not saying go buy a new car and hold it for 40 years and profit.
I'm saying if you buy the right car at the right time, you can make money on it.
I buy and sell old Italian cars/motorcycles often to fund my projects. That's how I paid for my truck and have extra money for my mods.

 

Just took what I found on Wikipedia. You personally Mam have made money on the car but overall the car netted a loss.

The Alfa Romeo GTV (Gran Turismo Veloce—English: Fast Grand Touring) and Alfa Romeo Spider were two sports cars produced by the Italian manufacturer Alfa Romeo from 1995 to 2006. It is also known by Alfa Romeo's internal designation 916. The GTV is a 2+2coupé, and the Spider is a two-seater roadsterversion of the GTV. Around 39,000 Spider and 41,700 GTVs were built from 1993 to 2004.

 

Sounds about the same as Canada! And when they do ship here, we have our 13% tax after the $1.28 or $1.30 exchange!

Thankfully I live on the border and get things shipped to MI!

Not only does so much NOT ship here, but half of what is out there on the net is "not viewable/accessible from your geographical region"

 

Nah, being alone in the mountains works well for me. Stay way too busy to worry about it...lol

 

everyone is different.

 

Twenty years ago I wanted to have the baddest vehicle around, but couldn't afford it. These days I'm fortunate that 1) I went back to school and got a degree that I could actually put to work for my wife and me, 2) we've busted our asses over those years, often over-extended, and learned how to manage our money in the process (which I wasn't really taught growing up) and 3) we are now in a position to spend what we want, when we want. Would it be smarter, financially, to save the money we just dropped on suspension, wheels, tires, gears, and front locker for my wife's '17? Probably. But it's not going to make us or break us in the long run, and our vehicles are our main hobby. 90% of the traveling we do every year is to USE our vehicles, and we really don't spend money on anything outside of that (other than craft beer).

I'm also fortunate to work in one of the greatest industries in the world!

 

It is different for everyone.

For me, I did not go out and drop 40k on a new 3rd gen Tacoma!
I spent 15k on my used truck and budgeted another 5k for mods.

I also buy a lot of my stuff used off the forum or on Craigslist.

 

I assume most pay with credit cards..... that’s how 90% of Americans buy their stuff that they can’t afford. America wouldn’t be the country it is without debt. And then people get into tons of debt, are trapped in their jobs to pay off this debt, bitch and moan about having to work at their job, but they caused it cause of their debt. Vicious cycle.

I mean com’on, the U.S. as a country I in tons of debt, not surprising its citizens are up to their eyeballs in debt

Immediate gratification vs delayed gratification. Guess which one wins most of the time

 

Thousands of Tacoma owners keep their truck stock, they just don’t post it all over TW. We are just seeing the people who are into the mods and that’s why I subscribe even if I don’t plan on spending the money on my own truck. It’s still cool to see what others do.

 

I have good credit score and a pretty good total credit limit.... my balance is under 3K total. We don't all use credit cards. Hard work pays off they say.

 

Because it looks cooler on stupidgram.

Kind of like an RTT when a ground tent would be more practical.

 

OP, just take you time and go with what you want to do and look at options for less expensive suspension like bilsteins as opposed to king or fox, it all depends on how you will drive it, I bought an SR5 cause I knew it was just as capable as an OR or sport but yet less expensive and I didn't really need the OR, etc. I will put bigger tires on and sumo springs and super bumstops and maybe some 5112's, but not going real crazy with it, I still drive it daily and need the gas mileage..plus i'm an old fart and don't need to compete with the youngins...

 

Easy come easy go.

 

I remember in the old TTORA days there was a guy called Supersized that lived in a trailer and had a family, but chose to spend his hard earned money on his truck. People make choices on how to spend their money. Some are not the best. No idea where that guy is now, but I am guessing he realized there was no such thing as a money tree.

 

Getting into a "not at fault" accident is a great way to upgrade parts too

 

Thought that was going to be the case for us back in January, and the dude who hit us and totalled our first '17 had no insurance.