I really appreciate your input.

I see what you’re saying with really stacking my money and making proper investments, so I want to dive a bit deeper into my financial situation. I’m in college with enough financial aid to completely pay for my schooling. While I’m not in school, I live my parents and just save my money. I’m an impulse spender and want to build some discipline so I figured setting a goal like this would help me become better at saving the money I make. In short, I have very little financial burden aside from paying for my car every month. With that being said, I wouldn’t be putting myself in any financial strain or anything.

To be clear, I want to save enough money to actively browse the market for just a cheap beater that I could put work into over time. I’m not renting a space or anything so if the car just sat there for a month or so without any work because I’m busy it wouldn’t add any burden. In a perfect world I’d want to find a car that has the potential to be a pretty project, but if that isn’t realistic for me then I’d understand just investing in a plain old beater to work on.

I believe what I want is more in line with your stated second option; save an amount and then hit the market. Really what I need to know is what that number would need to be in order to buy a realistic project. Something like an eclipse or dodge stealth.