Cars feel like one of the dumbest things you can spend a lot of money on.
a.) They depreciate over time and require constant maintenance. The more expensive the car, the costlier the repairs/maintenance often are.
b.) Very often (not always), more expensive cars are also larger and get worse gas mileage on them.
c.) The PRIMARY functionality of the car - getting you from Place A to Place B - is mostly the same across models. There are speed limits, so having a Ferrari won't matter that much in terms of getting you somewhere faster. The reliability of cars on a basic level is also quite good, so your Honda Civic will reliably get you to work just the same as a BMW that costs 2-3x.
Yes, aesthetics and special features can be significantly better if you go from a $25K car to a $50K+ one. But, for that extra $25K+, is it worth the opportunity cost of investing that money for a return elsewhere (like stock market index fund)? To me, no.
I'm willing to spend money on food and even higher costing/higher quality food outside the home, on the other hand, b/c I think:
a.) it saves me time (there is opportunity costs associated with cooking/planning/buying ingredients/washing dishes)
b.) higher quality foods (I'm guilty of eating lots of fast food too, but I do try to balance that out with healthy higher quality meals too) lead to better health. Better health = less medical expenses and possibly even more work productivity (and life enjoyment "energy").
I consider good food a worthwhile cost to pay up for, but not cars.
My two cents.
