Applied Theology

It's in the news this week that the average new car price in the US has topped $50,000 for the first time. That's according to a study released by Kelley Blue Book.

That eye-popping price presents quite a bit of sticker shock to those of us older than, say, 30, who remember cars being a lot cheaper in the past— including the not-too-distant past. But car prices are inflationary, and over time the compounding effect of a few percent a year packs a wallop— particularly after the past few years, when inflation has run higher than just a few percent a year.

Even so, have car prices increased faster than the rate of inflation? One way of looking at it argues yes. For example, I bought my own first car, new, in 1991. It cost $9,100. Per inflation calculators easy to find online (I did a quick search and tried the top five results, all hosted by reputable sites) that $9,100 in 1991 dollars is $21,500 today. Trying finding a new car for just $21,500 nowadays! "The $20,000 market for cars is extinct," Cox Automotive analyst Erin Keating said, as noted in this Yahoo! Finance article (14 Oct 2025).

"Extinct" is a bit of hyperbole, of course. But if you tweak that term to nearly extinct, it's spot-on. A quick check over at Edmunds.com shows that it's hard to get into a new car, even a subcompact, for my $21,500 effective price in 2025. Here's what I found:

• A popular car that was comparable in size to what I bought at the time is the Honda Civic. The cheapest Civic model today starts at 24,500. (That's Edmunds' suggested negotiated price, not "sticker".)


• Another popular moden that was similar to mine 24 years ago is the Toyota Corolla. The cheapest new 2025 Corolla, in base trim, is $22,200.


• Rounding out the Japanese Big 3, Nissan's base-model Sentra S retails for an average of $21,250.

Many of the articles covering KBB's announcement point out that a simple, inflation based comparison is misleading. That's because, they argue, cars today are better than cars from years ago. Indeed, reliability is up across the auto industry. Statistics show that cars are able to operate more miles and more years now than decades ago.

Feature content in new cars is improved, too. That $21,250 Nissan Sentra S is derided for offering sparse accommodations. Indeed it comes with steel wheels with plastic hub caps and cloth upholstery. But my 1991 new car also had steel wheels with plastic hubcaps and cloth upholstery... and it did not have power windows. Or air conditioning. 😰 These are things we all take for granted in cars today! And the 2025 Sentra S also has remote keyless entry, push-button start, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with a 7" touchscreen. My 1991 car didn't even have a side-view mirror on the right side. I bought one a year later for $95 from the dealership's parts department and installed it myself!

So, yeah, the $21,500 end of the new car market really doesn't suck today. Sure, you're getting a base-model car for that money, but even the base model today is a way nicer car than the base models of years ago.

And what about that $50k figure? Most of the news coverage about it notes that the average price has been driven up by most of the activity in the new-car market being at the higher end. Lower end shoppers are finding more satisfaction in buying a good, lightly used car for $21,500. That's where I'd be shopping today with $21,500. Meanwhile the best-selling new vehicle in the US is the Ford F-150 pickup, the most popular trim levels of which start over $40,000. The plusher trims run from $50,000 to over $70,000.

I've posted a few times recently about plumbing repairs in our house. We've had two plumbing projects recently. One was replacing some hardware in our shower in our first bathroom. That was a DIY project to replace some dripping valves and update the look of some hardware, and it's now done.

The other project is replacing the toilet flange in our second bathroom. That's necessary because of a leak in the ceiling we discovered. We called a plumber since it was a leak inside the walls. He removed the toilet, cut into the walls, and diagnosed it as a broken drain flange that would need to be replaced. That was all eight weeks ago now. Yes, it took that long for them to schedule the work to fix it.

Finally, Tuesday, a small crew came to start the work. Here's the Day 1 progress.



Part of the reason it took the plumbing company 8 weeks to schedule the work is that they realized they'd need to remove the tile floor in the bathroom and re-tile it. You can see the floor stripped down to the sub-floor in the photo above. You can also see the new piece of sub-floor (plywood) they installed. That's to replace what was rotted out by the leaking flange. Once they stripped out all the tiles they realized the rot spread more widely than first thought. Thus it was good the project lead decided to strip the whole floor.

The black pipe with the metal can sitting atop it is a temporary drain pipe sitting atop the new flange. That will be trimmed down to size when they're ready to reinstall the toilet.



I posted yesterday about moving my home office downstairs temporarily. Here's why. The photo above shows what's currently in my regular home office. Yeah, the bathroom being repaired is connected to the office. So in addition to it being super noisy up there while the workers are working, the office is currently storing a few things that aren't in the bathroom. Like the actual toilet!

The plan for today, Day 2, is that the workers will install new tile on the bathroom floor. Among other things that means they're going to be running a tile saw— which has a very loud, very high pitched whine as it runs. Working from downstairs may not be enough. I might have to work somewhere other than in the house today.

With plumbers expected to arrive today to fix our broken toilet— yes, that link is from almost 8 weeks ago; that's how long it's taken then to get around to the work 😡— I've moved my home office setup down to a folding table in the living room.



I do this temporary office relocation a few times a year. Most years I do it for a week or two in the summer when it gets really hot up on the third floor, where my real home office is located. This year the summer wasn't that hot, though I did choose to relocate briefly in May when the neighbors were having noisy renovations done. It's nice that modern technology— laptop computers and LED external monitors— makes it easy to grab and go. From the time I unplugged upstairs until I was set up and powered-on downstairs was 5 minutes.

It's not a bad setup, aside from the fact the folding card table is a bit wobbly. (A few years ago Hawk would let me borrow her craft desk when I needed a week's relocation, but now it's too full of... craft.) It's nice being able to open the curtains on the sliding glass door to enjoy the view of the garden outside. This morning a pair of humming birds are flitting around the trees. It's also nice to open the door for fresh air in the morning, though this morning it's just a tad too cool to enjoy it.