If you followed his advice and not bought a house you would have had 2 less emergencies. Also, renting in the city you would have had no need for a car and thus 0 emergencies.

I can't tell if this is parody or a serious encouragement to conform to a specific lifestyle and thus remove all life's problems.

"The City" being Manhattan or perhaps Chicago, the only place sin America where we have usable public transportation.

Boston/Cambridge/Brookline, Atlanta, Seattle...

Portland.

Denver

Depending on lifestyle and place of employment, being carless without a lot of sacrifices isn't necessarily limited to New York and Chicago. I know people in Boston and San Francisco without cars who use some combination of public transportation, Uber/taxis, Zipcar, and conventional rentals. That said, it's somewhere between inconvenient and very difficult in many places--including urban ones.

> public transportation, Uber/taxis, Zipcar, and conventional rentals

That doesn't add up to something more expensive than a car? I was in ny recently, and a train ticket on the LIRR cost ~20 round trip. That's $600/month. But, it's better overall because of the traffic to and in the city.

Well, somewhere like NY you also have to consider the cost of storing the car. You live in a dense city and transportation tends to be expensive one way or the other.

It really depends on a whole host of factors both related to the economics and the convenience. There are a few cities that tend to be particularly car unfriendly. Many where cars are essentially a requirement. And some that can go either way depending upon your lifestyle, where you work, and a variety of individual preferences.

But figure that a car is going to cost some X thousands of dollars a year plus whatever it costs you to park it. (The government rate is $0.57 or so per mile though that may not be that directly applicable to car vs. other transportation analysis.)

San Francisco is very bikeable/longboardable/electricgizmoable.

Source: I don't have a car, but I do have a motorized longboard.

Those are the only cities with ubiquitous rail transit. But you can do it in lots of other places if you insist on it or if you don't feel like you're above riding on buses, the latter of which are available in basically every major U.S. city.

I live in Columbus, and I looked at a bus route to work, and it was about 1.5 hours one way, with a transfer. For me, it's a 20 minute drive to work.

Also there is not service to/from most of the suburbs.

Pretty sure he still had emergencies. You're suggesting he just wouldn't need to pay for them if he was renting.

I'd personally rather pay an extra 20-40 bucks a month for something like BGE Home appliances/HVAC warranty than an extra 30% a month in rent relative to the cost of the mortgage. Oh, and gain equity. And rent the same house to someone else in a few years, have them pay my mortgage, and make an extra 30% off the top from them.

Renting isn't stupid. Buying isn't either, despite how popular that notion seems around here.

It was also advice for Millenials. I don't know who seibelj is, so I have no ability to judge whether a house is or is not a good idea.

I own mine. It is, for me, where I am physically and personally and professionally, a better move than renting. But then, I'm not really a Millenial. (Born 1978, some stretch "Millenial" back to the 1980s, but in life trajectory I'm more "X" than "Millenial". Though frankly I identify with neither.)

That depends on how you define emergency. Water-heater and car tires don't qualify as emergency for me. Heck, car tires are a regular maintenance expense. Emergency is something like the house burning down, the car getting stolen, or my health taking a turn for the worse. All of which I insure against.

I assume that's short-hand for taking a loan against your 401K (penalties mentioned as a worst-case-scenario?). Which you pay back "to yourself", with interest.

I have an emergency fund because "I'm supposed to", but in hindsight, paying myself 4% would've been a higher rate of return than my 401K has seen this year.

In light of that, is the advice really that bad? Even if it was a good year and it turned out wrong, you've probably only lost a few points on that money over the term of your loan. If the alternative is putting money into a Savings Account returning a fraction of a percent, and actually becoming worth less over time?

Just thinking out loud. I don't consider myself all that financially savvy.

I agree that he was thinking a 401k loan but the biggest downside of 401k loans is that if you leave your current employer (are fired or choose to leave) the full amount of the loan is due immediately. This is a huge set of handcuffs to your employer that make it more difficult to jump ship for more money.

Replacing tires on a car is not an emergency unless you happened to blow a tire, and even then that's usually covered under warranty unless you screwed something up and like drove your car over a curb causing the damage.

Agreed.

Same can be said about the water heather and the dishwasher. If they both failed so close one another it was either an Act-of-God (and outlier that no one ought to experience more than once, statistically speaking) or more likely the result of malign neglect. If the GP had just bought the house, he/she ought to have made a better job at surveying the infrastructure and considering repair cost in the total price. If that's the case, it reflects poorly on them to have been taken by surprise by those events.

Many people, particularly those interested in personal finance, wouldn't dream of buying a car new enough to be under warranty.

Tire warranty != Car warranty. Tires include their own warranties up to a certain number of miles, they also (in my experience) cover many types of damage.

Err... running over a nail, for example, is not generally covered by warranty.

really? Every tire I've purchased has included free flat fixes. I've had nails and screws pulled. All covered no charge.