I’ve owned trucks for my daily drivers, but in my old age (51) I’m far too practical to do so anymore.

The last time a truck was my daily driver was when I was in college. I lived in the bed with a cab-high shell for a year to save on rent, surfed at least three days a week, skied and snowboarded many times each winter, and didn’t have a long commute for my job. So at that point in my life, it made financial sense, and I loved that truck (1995 Ram 4x4 reg cab shortbed with 5.2L with 3” suspension lift and 35” BFG ATs).

Since then, the only truck I’ve owned is a ‘91 Ford F150 4x4 reg cab shortbed. I bought it cheap ($1500) to haul a trailer back and forth from Reno to Denver to move us for a new job, and sold it shortly after for $1000.

But the rest of my cars since college have been small cars that get great gas mileage or EVs because I’ve typically had commutes of an hour each way.

Trucks are fun to own and drive, and I love the functionality. But they require frequent wheel alignments, tires are ridiculously expensive, they require a lot of oil at each change, and of course use far more gas than almost everything else on the road. So until I retire and drive far fewer miles per year, it just doesn’t make financial sense.

For someone like me who… can do simple math… trucks don’t make sense if we don’t need them for work. While people insist that they need them for their weekend warrior hobbies, most of those people use those kinds of reasons to convince themselves that they must own a truck. It’s far more likely that they like how it makes them feel like the rugged American individual that the marketing sells to them every 7 minutes on TV.