How the markets cost Chevreau a new car

In my financial novel, Findependence Day, I establish the habit of “guerrilla frugality” as the key behaviour modification necessary to establish financial independence.
Unfortunately, there are times when extreme frugality can backfire. I have to concede that, based on my own recent experience this summer, I might have been better off heeding the philosophy of the spend-now-for-tomorrow-we-die crowd. As I point out in the adjacent column, I regard the mantra of “better to spend it than watch my hard-earned money go down the tubes in the stock market” as a flimsy excuse for not saving and investing.
Even so, I have to admit there are times when spenders are rewarded and savers punished by circumstances.
In the spring, I was seriously considering replacing my 1999 Volvo. It’s a solid, reliable car although something of a gas guzzler, and costly trips to the repair shop had become frequent enough that I’d begun to joke that Volvo is Swedish for “money pit.”
At the time, I could have bought a new luxury car outright by liquidating an ETF holding mostly Canadian bank stocks (non-registered). If I had done so, I would have sold near their May highs and would now be driving a brand new fuel-efficient car with all the modern gadgets.
Perhaps deterred by triggering capital gains taxes, I opted to keep the old car running. Since then, much more than the value of a new car has gone down the tubes in the stock-market correction. This time around, I have to concede, my “guerrilla frugality” backfired.
The money I considered would be “wasted” on a new car was instead “wasted” in plunging bank stocks (and stocks of every other ilk).
Source: National Post