I must be stupid/naive or very uninformed, since I had absolutely no idea one could rent a car for eternity, besides renting a car when you must travel somewhere by airplane for holiday or work, you go to one of these rent a car shops, so you have some transportation to move around. From the first car I owned to the one now, I just went to the car dealer, chose the car I wanted to buy and paid for it.
Here we own a house and we rent an apartment (where we live). I have never heard of anyone renting a car undefinitely here in Japan, but I must ask my husband (Japanese) if he knows anything about this.
You are the first person who I heard that never drank alcohol in life!! I come from a culture that is very common to drink alcohol and married into a very heavily alcohol oriented culture. Personally, I only drink alcohol sometimes, not everyday when I simply drink juice (I can't stand drinking water without any flavor unless is sparkling) or coffee, but beer with dinner is very nice.
Also I'm not familiar with charity thrift shops, you mean shops that sells used clothes? Here there are so many used clothes shops (and used furniture, used electronics, used DVDs used everything shops), everyone sell to these shops items she/he don't want anymore and you can buy them too. I have gone there when an item I want is not available new any longer, or just for fun, sometimes you can find treasures there!! Some people sell to these shops entire households worth of items ( like a person dies, so the relative calls the shop to come and sell everything inside the house to them) and some people have no idea how valuable something is.
Of course I prefer everything new, but again, go to the used whatever shop is very fun and sometimes can be very profitable (my coach went there, bought a cheap coat, and there was a 1万円 (highest cash money bill in the Japanese currency) inside one of the pockets! She was very happy!)
Would you rather go to the supermarket and buy everything you need there, or go buy the meats in the meat supermarket and so on (as in buy certain items in certain supermarkets, not all in one)?