Nissan Altimas

and what I've learned about the people who drive them...

Dear reader,

There’s a rumor in circulation about the owners of Nissan Altimas that led me to do a bit of research online.

Based on all findings if you own or lease a Nissan Altima, you are either (a) a reckless driver, or (b) financially irresponsible!

I’m not sure about the reckless driver part but I can raise my hand and say that as the owner of my fourth Altima, the financially irresponsible part might be true.

Let me explain.

For starters, every Altima I have owned I’ve really leased. I decided to start leasing back in 2016 after I purchased a 2008 Honda Accord EX-L. To date, this car is my favorite of all the cars I owned. I was working for Bank of America at the time as an assistant branch manager and I was previously driving a 1996 Honda Accord that I bought from a friend of a friend for $1600.

It was my first car — stick shift — and it gave me minimal issues until one day the radiator exploded on my way to work. It couldn’t have been worse timing because I was in the middle of the home buying process and would have to run my credit to finance a reliable vehicle. After a few weeks of searching, I found the ‘08 Accord with leather seats, 5-speed manual transmission, the works. I bought it for 10,000 and put my current car and $1500 down.

Within 5 months I had to spend over $5,000 in maintenance on the car and it was virtually undriveable. It was my first “dealer” purchase —quotes because it was a shady used car dealer— and I got got. Once I got the car driveable I took it to the nearest Nissan dealer based on a suggestion from a friend and took the best deal they would offer me on it: A 2-year lease for a 2017 Nissan Altima, the start of my Nissan love affair.

Now you might be asking yourself at this point, how is this a sign that I’m financially irresponsible? Gullible when it comes to buying cars, maybe but not entirely irresponsible.

Well, earlier this year my third lease with Nissan was up about a week before my birthday. Being self-employed my income is often irregular and I was faced with a choice. Give back the lease and be without a car or, take out a new lease and figure out how I was going to make consistent payments on it.

The short version of the story is that I decided to go into another 2 year lease with a slightly higher payment than my previous one!

Financially irresponsible? Maybe but here’s the lesson I wanted to share with you.

Recently I was reading an academic journal on the impact of stress on financial decision-making and I came across the phrase harm avoidant behavior.

An excerpt from the abstract reads:

”We speculate that those who adopt a more harm avoidant strategy may be better able to regulate their exposure to further environmental stress, reducing their susceptibility to mood and anxiety disorders.”

Throughout this piece I’ve glossed over some highly stressful periods in my life financially that led me down a series of choices that have a) kept me a loyal Nissan customer and b), been an attempt to avoid financial harm (or at least my perception of harm) in that moment.

Even my recent decision to lease despite not knowing how or if I’d be able to make on-time payments (which fortunately I have) was weighed against the discomfort of not having a vehicle to get around in, particularly as it relates to finding opportunities to make more money. While this may create harm or stress in the future (which it did), it soothed a part of me in that moment of panic.

Financial responsibility can’t be determined by a book, an influencer, or even a financial professional when it comes to your values, your goals, and your survival.

Unironically, I wrote a book titled “Financially Irresponsible” —titled that way for a completely different reason but entirely relevant in this discussion — where I look back at some of the tips and strategies I share and cringe as this version of me has a more informed and formal lens to look back at the situations I navigated at the time of its writing.

Now my goal is to grow this newsletter to 10,000+ readers to normalize discussions on the reactions to our perceptions of harm by way of financial trauma and the various tentacles that contribute to it. At this point, I’m a ways off from accomplishing that goal but I know it’s possible as we approach the 2,000 reader mark every day.

If you want to be a part of this cultural shift in the way we view and interact with money you can help me grow this newsletter by sharing it with a friend, preferably one that drives a Nissan Altima - jokes, jokes -.

If you want to share your own story with my audience (anonymous is fine) feel free to drop me a comment (within Substack) or reply to this email.

Talk soon,

Rahkim