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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, letβs try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
If you can afford to pay cash then take the loan and invest the cash elsewhere, and if you can beat the interest on the loan then come back to write better financial advice than this. And even if you can't you'd at least have done something interesting.
We bought a reliable car for 22k without financing. Our next car will be bought when this one dies. It's not necessary to have a new car every couple of years.
Dave Ramsey is an out of touch asshole though.
As a pedestrian, I'm glad not to support big bike chain lube, I'm saving dozens of pennies annually
Oh, you're one of those shills for the shoe-leather industry! π
Dave Ramsey hasn't tried to buy a reliable used car in the last decade, at least. You aren't going to find anything under about $10k that's actually reliable where I am. A mid-90s Toyota with 300,000 miles maybe, but not anything under 150,000.
With the $554 average new car payment in the original post, you can afford that $10k new-to-you used car outright in cash every 18 months.
Average price of a used car in the US, right now, is $29,000. Which means that for a $554 payment, it's going to be 5.4 years rather than 1.5. From there, you need to figure out how many miles you put on a car in a year, make some rough guesses about how many miles the average car has left before the cost to repair exceeds the cost of replacing, etc. Obvs. a high mileage used car is going to require significantly more maintenance than a new car will (...in most cases, as long as you aren't buying a new Land Rover or Jaguar), so you'll need to figure that in as well. You'll probably want good insurance, even if you're only required to carry minimal liability insurance, because any accident could be catastrophic for your finances if you can't afford to repair your car.
It's a bit of a death spiral; wages are still too low, car prices are too high.
Memes circulating with this dude right now, even if positioning him as a chud, are a way to launder this dude as just a legit money guy. Sure, he has some basic, broad financial advice you can consider if you can see through all the Jesus and have no other options, but more than anything else, he's a vile human being.
Eat religious shit dave ramsey.
If you pay 500$ a month for 30 years at 5% interest compounded monthly you would contribute $180k and would have $416,129 so not really a million. You would need a little less than 9.5% interest to get a million. 2% interest is only getting you $246k which when you take into account inflation 2-3% normal average minus 5% one of the higher realistic interests that is what you are actually making .
If you pay 500$ a month for 30 years at 5% interest compounded monthly you would contribute $180k and would have $416,129 so not really a million. You would need a little less than 9.5% interest to get a million. 2% interest is only getting you $246k which when you take into account inflation 2-3% normal average minus 5% one of the higher realistic interests that is what you are actually making .
Ramsey is always very optimistic about investment returns. His advice isn't too bad though.
Honestly if someone were to have said that garbage to him 40 years ago he prolly would have called it unAmerican and communistical.
It is weird to watch the ethical scoliosis happen in real time over the decades.
Insurance payments for teenage boys are INSANE. $100-150 is the usual but my buddy is paying literally $300 a month on a year 200X Tahoe that he bought for $700 and fixed himself. Its the cheapest option on his families insurance and his parents won't let him switch.
That's not even payments that's INSURANCE.
That's really exorbitant insurance. I don't know where he lives or what is situation is but $350 a month is insane.
You can buy a very nice e-bike every year with that money.
It drives me crazy when i get spam that says they can save me money on my car insurance
O rly? How you gonna beat $0?
I paid $830/month for a moderately priced car at only 2.9% for a few years. 1/3 my current yearly salary in full. It wasnβt smart, but I beat inflation at that rate. That car let me and my wife travel so much in our early marriage and it was so worth it. The car is more expensive now then when I bought it.
I love that car and it brought me joy. Itβs paid off now.
Tomorrow is not promised. Save for the future but donβt neglect being happy today. Go live a little.
Spoken like someone who's long since stopped worrying about having to commute without mass transit available.
If mass transit is available and reasonable then yeah, go off. But otherwise please stop blaming the victims of Capitalism.
I was looking for a new car a few years ago, but i didn't have to rush, i didn't have a car for almost two years and just used my work car if i really needed one. Then covid hit and i was still sometimes browsing cars. People were selling the cars they no longer can afford and i was fucking shocked to see people selling cars saying that the monthly pay off is like 1200 or shit like that. Who would think that is a good idea? If you can afford it there is no reason to pay it off, and if you can't, it's too expensive. That is just the car payment, no insurance or road fees or anything.
$1200 is ridiculous. That's how much my mortgage is.
Never buying a vehicle I can't pay upfront for again if I can help it. Hated those payments the first time I had to go through it. I do more real work with my 80's era pickup than the yuppies who need their "toy haulers" do that sit almost twice as high. Plus, once I get the diesel swapped in and I'm running biodiesel, I have less emissions as well. Did you know that modern American diesels are so tuned for regular diesel that they can't run biodiesel? I assume the Euro models can though.
Usually biodiesel compatibility is a function of fuel pumps and injectors, the high performance ones are $$$. I wouldn't assume Euro models are biodiesel compatible, the VW diesels weren't after the 'Pumpe dΓΌse' era.
I've never understood buying a car on credit. My car's 17 years old now. Bought it when it was 8 years old. Insurance is β¬390/yr.
Liquidity. Buying a car on credit is mostly stupid, but there are cases when it makes some sense. My last car loan was 3.54%. My combined accounts were earning ~8%. Paying cash in that case would be throwing away money. Well, throwing away money on top of wasting it on a car.
The hell are these people driving? I pay $240/mo for a goddamn Lexus.
Hah, look at this guy that doesn't even have a cybertruck!
I pay about $450 a month for my mini cargo van and another $80-ish for insurance. I also drive about 3,000 miles a month (my commute is long and I spend most weekends out of town helping my parents), so I average about 350 dollars a month in gas. Let's call it another 100 a month on average for maintenance (I do my own oil, the tires are pretty cheap, but there will be occasional large expenses).
So that comes out to pretty close to a thousand dollars a month total. That's a lot of money.
But by living in the middle of the country far from work, I can rent a trailer home that costs about $1500/month less than a tiny apartment close enough to work to walk or bike, and I have the freedom of owning a car and being able to go anywhere and haul anything I need.
So yeah, it's expensive, but it would be even more expensive NOT to have it.
The US sounds extremely expensive. In the EU 1500$ a month will pay for a very nice apartment close to work.