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Chris_V
Chris_V UltraDork
1/4/13 3:50 p.m.
dculberson wrote:
Chris_V wrote: To be honest, this "I'm cheaper than you are and spend less money than you do" competition is as bad as the "I spend more than you do" comeptition. It's the flip side of the same love of money coin, and can be just as ugly in it's judgemental posturing.
That's actually a really interesting point. I hadn't thought of it that way, and honestly I think you're right. I'm in the "I spend way less than I can" camp and have to keep your point in mind when bragging about it. :-)

Yeah, and I'm trying not to be judgemental in calling it out, and that's a hard task.

I grew up below the poverty line and know how to live frugally. But having to live that way with no choice means now I don't want to CHOOSE to live that way, and yet at the same time, I don't like spending a lot of money if I don't have to. Makes it hard as a car guy because there are $100 cars I like, $1000 cars I like, $10,000 cars I like, and $100,000 cars I like, and I could justify spending $1,000,000 on the right car. So if I want a $18k used car and can afford to make the $300 a month payments on it, then I see nothing wrong with making those payments to have it. Even as just a toy, which my Mustang is.

I'm also going to try really, really hard to keep it more than 5 years (which would be a first for me), but I don't want my wife in an out of warranty car anymore, so yes, I've resigned myself to having at least one car that always has payments. Which is why I've turned to leasing as a way of reducing the cost of always having payments on a new car that we also like. I only pay for the part of the car I use, and don't have to deal with idiots when I move on to the next one.

Hal
Hal Dork
1/4/13 4:04 p.m.

The wife and I will always have a "car payment". 30 years ago when our cars were finally paid off we decided to keep putting a "car payment" in a savings account every month. Since we buy our DD's new and keep them 10-12 years that "car payment" adds up to enough to pay cash when we do buy a new car.

We just bought the wife a 2013 Subaru Legacy. Had a little trouble getting the salesman and the finance guy to understand that we did not want any financing and were going to write a check for the full price.

The only exception to the pay cash method was my Transit Connect. Since Ford was offering 0% for 36 months I figured why not.

Duke
Duke PowerDork
1/4/13 4:09 p.m.
Anti-stance wrote: I was just pointing out the mentality that some people can't imagine not having a car payment. That seems weird to me.

We solved that conundrum by financing our cars through my wife's credit union and having the payment deducted from her paycheck. Once the loan is closed, we keep having the same amount deducted, except it goes to a savings account to be used for the next car purchase. That way we don't get used to extra mad money, but we also get to put a sizable portion down, or pay cash, depending upon the scale of the purchase.

wbjones
wbjones UberDork
1/4/13 4:11 p.m.

don't understand why sales people can't get a handle on a check for the entire amt .. that's how it works if you arrange outside financing

Duke
Duke PowerDork
1/4/13 4:14 p.m.

They can get a handle on it... what they want is their cut of the interest they share with the lender when the dealer arranges the financing.

wbjones
wbjones UberDork
1/4/13 4:17 p.m.

oh I actually do understand ...was just sorta poking fun at most of the car sales folk

noddaz
noddaz GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
1/4/13 4:41 p.m.
moxnix wrote: at 1.99% right now why not have a car payment?

Because I do not want to be further in dept...

BoxheadTim
BoxheadTim GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
1/4/13 4:51 p.m.
Cotton wrote:
BoxheadTim wrote: And yes, I'm looking at buying something special with hopefully a comparably low depreciation. Wife and I appear to have finally settled on a 996TT... That said, the "I might stick this into the scenery" toys like the Me-Otter have no payments and I'm not planning to change that.
Happy to hear about the 996TT as I have been looking at them for awhile now. Please post up impressions after you've had some time with it.

First, we have to buy one and for that, the credit score will have to recover for another 2-3 months (bought a house last year), I guess. But I'll definitely keep everybody here updated if they want it or not .

Cotton wrote: I don't have a problem with car payments. The wife generally has a newish car that is financed...I generally have a E36 M3ton of toys that aren't, so it works out.

There is one aspect that makes me gravitate to more expensive cars here in the US (compared to the UK) - I'm stuffed without a car here. In the UK, I could always take the train to work or use the bike year-round, but that is not an option out here. So I either have to have a fairly new and really reliable car, or I have to have a collection of E36 M3boxes that take all my spare time to maintain. I used to go for quantity over quality, these days I'd rather go the other way.

That said, I applaud everybody who wants to keep their borrowings to a minimum.

z31maniac
z31maniac PowerDork
1/4/13 5:25 p.m.
Duke wrote: They can get a handle on it... what they want is their cut of the interest they share with the lender when the dealer arranges the financing.

That's fine, if you use a public credit union or bank, you are going to get the same rate, but tell the dealership you'll let them do the financing and the price will come down a bit more.

DeadSkunk
DeadSkunk Dork
1/4/13 5:55 p.m.
Hal wrote: The wife and I will always have a "car payment". 30 years ago when our cars were finally paid off we decided to keep putting a "car payment" in a savings account every month. Since we buy our DD's new and keep them 10-12 years that "car payment" adds up to enough to pay cash when we do buy a new car. We just bought the wife a 2013 Subaru Legacy. Had a little trouble getting the salesman and the finance guy to understand that we did not want any financing and were going to write a check for the full price. The only exception to the pay cash method was my Transit Connect. Since Ford was offering 0% for 36 months I figured why not.

25 years ago I bought our first mid-size family sedan with my credit cards. I had the cash to write a check, but kept the cash invested for another 30 days until the Visa bill showed up. You should have seen the confused look on the salesman's face when I said I wanted top put it on a credit card (split between two cards actually). Priceless !

DaveEstey
DaveEstey SuperDork
1/4/13 6:01 p.m.

I paid cash for my house, I'm more than OK having a car payment. In fact, I'm likely to take on another car payment in the near future when I sell my Miata and buy a Mazda6.

Toyman01
Toyman01 GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
1/4/13 6:08 p.m.

Here's my take on it.

It depends on what your are comfortable with. Not only from a vehicle stand point, but from a financial stand point. Some people want a shiny new car with a warranty and are willing to pay for it. Some people really don't care about what they drive and would rather spend the money on other things.

I'm in the no car payments group. Mostly because I like cash in my pocket to blow on other things, but also from an adversity to financial risk. When the tight months come along, and they do, I don't have to worry about making a debt payment on anything other than the houses. Both of them together are less than 30% of my income, and the rental makes its own payment. If I go out of business tomorrow, I can have another job making substantially less and still have a roof over my head and a car to get to work.

The wife drives high mileage, decent cars I pay cash for, usually in the $3000-$5000 range. She's in a 02 Liberty at the moment that we paid $3500 for. It replaced a wrecked Chevy Venture that was also $3500 when we bought it.

I drive whatever. At the moment I have a 89 Super Coupe and a Roadmaster. The SC was $1800 and the Roadmaster was $1200. They spend most of their time sitting in the driveway because I drive my company van most of the time. I buy them cheap, drive until destroyed or I get bored and replace them.

There really isn't a right or wrong way to do things. Personally, other than a home mortgage, I don't like debt. I'm not comfortable with it. Owing credit card people and car people money keeps me awake at night. To be perfectly honest, I don't trust myself with it, I like to spend money. Therefore, I'm very conservative with debt and pretty much don't use it.

It doesn't make me better than anyone. It also doesn't make me worse.

Sonic
Sonic SuperDork
1/4/13 6:26 p.m.

I'm with Wearymicrobe on this one...I kept my $ in my investments, where they make way more than the 1.49% interest that my credit union charges. I'm making more money by using their money, after I chose to drive a nicer car than I need to. As a bonus, my credit continues to rock because of it.

No need for everyone to wave their cheap ass digital penises everywhere like this...No, I'm cheaper! etc. People make different choices and have different priorities. That's OK.

Curmudgeon
Curmudgeon MegaDork
1/4/13 7:14 p.m.

Exactly. My priorities are (and I'm like Toyman this way) to not put myself in a position where it's real easy to lose everything overnight and also to be able to put something aside for my (looming real big) retirement. I do not see a good reason to eat cat food when I'm 75 because I just REALLY REALLY had to drive a Mercedes when I was 55, ya know?

My credit is great because I use it sparingly and make payments on time etc. If a bank, mortgage company etc decides my credit's 'not good enough' because I don't have a car payment or a double handful of maxed out credit cards and they decide they need to jack up my interest rates because of that, screw 'em. That tells me their 'credit scoring' is for THEIR benefit, not MINE. Meaning it's in their best interest to keep me in debt till the day I am turned to a wisp of greasy smoke. The hell with that.

There's no end of banks willing to take my business.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker
Giant Purple Snorklewacker MegaDork
1/4/13 7:54 p.m.
Sonic wrote: No need for everyone to wave their cheap ass digital penises everywhere like this...No, I'm cheaper! etc. People make different choices and have different priorities. That's OK.

I smelted my car from ore I mined. With my penis.

wbjones
wbjones UberDork
1/4/13 8:10 p.m.
z31maniac wrote:
Duke wrote: They can get a handle on it... what they want is their cut of the interest they share with the lender when the dealer arranges the financing.
That's fine, if you use a public credit union or bank, you are going to get the same rate, but tell the dealership you'll let them do the financing and the price will come down a bit more.

no where near enough to make up for the amt of interest they're going to get ... unless you qualify for any of the super deal % rates

Spinout007
Spinout007 GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
1/4/13 8:45 p.m.

I'll tell a little story and then I'm stepping out of this thread. I took the time to read all 5 pages, and one theme is prevalent. A FOOL AND THEIR MONEY ARE SOON PARTED.

My grandfather retired from Mobile, as in the oil.company. I was utterly clueless about what he did or.how much $$ he made. I just knew that grandpa drove an ole Chevy C10 and grandma drove a Lincoln Towncar, they lived in the country in a huge house, with a 6 acre pond on about 30 acres of land. Apparently grandpa handled all the finances and investing. I just know that gramps died 17 years ago, and when he did, all of my cousins and aunts, (he only had daughters.4 of em) who couldn't be bothered to show for the funeral wanted to know when the will was going to be read, and when grandpa's lawyer told em to take a hike, grandma gets everything, they sued. At this point I still had no clue, and to this day, I have no clue, I never asked. I just know that grandpa retired as regional vp of the middle east operations, and grandma purchased a brand new escalade ever 3-4 years till about 3 years ago. Went through 3 houses that were all near half a mill when they sold. The last one sold for just shy of 300k and she was in foreclosure on it is the only reason she took it.

Yup she burned through it all. She was spending close to 4k a month just on pest control, yard maint, utilities, etc. That didn't include the Damn house payment. I got to fly up and drive a moving truck back to fl with her so I had some time to ask some questions. Apparently her accountant had informed her she needed to have something for deductions, so ie the 50k SUV every couple of years, financing homes, paying for everything to be done by a "professional' yard care etc.

She went on gambling trips, had records of how much she won, and lost. I was shown one where she won 800k on one trip, but she lost 600k to get to it. And guess what? She paid taxes on it. Anyway. Grandma is now broke, living on SS. And complains a lot. The good side? She's 2 hours down the road, and I get to take her fishing a lot now.

Education, is either going to save this country or lack there of will ruin it. As I said, a fool and their money are soon parted. Especially when everyone and their brother are out there waiting for them to take a wrong step.

logdog
logdog GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
1/4/13 9:04 p.m.

If dummies dont buy new cars, how can cheapskates buy 10 year old BMWs? The supply of 90s Accords will eventually dry up.

Anti-stance
Anti-stance SuperDork
1/4/13 9:10 p.m.

In reply to logdog:

Now you see why I don't think it is particularly wrong for people to buy new cars.

logdog
logdog GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
1/4/13 9:15 p.m.
Anti-stance wrote: In reply to logdog: Now you see why I don't think it is particularly wrong for people to buy new cars.

This thread had taught me that no matter what, we can all find something to argue about.

z31maniac
z31maniac PowerDork
1/4/13 9:21 p.m.
wbjones wrote:
z31maniac wrote:
Duke wrote: They can get a handle on it... what they want is their cut of the interest they share with the lender when the dealer arranges the financing.
That's fine, if you use a public credit union or bank, you are going to get the same rate, but tell the dealership you'll let them do the financing and the price will come down a bit more.
no where near enough to make up for the amt of interest they're going to get ... unless you qualify for any of the super deal % rates

I don't think you are understanding, let me better explain.

Let's say you want to use Bank of WBJones. For people with great credit and a strong income, you will get 2.99% if you apply directly with the bank. If my dealership uses Bank of WBJones, I'll also get the SAME 2.99% while paying less for the car..........the only person who makes less is Bank of WBJones.

Is that more clear?

ddavidv
ddavidv PowerDork
1/5/13 6:31 a.m.

I didn't wade through all 5 pages, but I get the gist. I generally don't like borrowing money, either. I can envision a day with no mortgage payment and realize just how fast the money will stack up when that happens. I look forward to it...in about 8 years.

Having a loan is a personal decision, but there's two parts of borrowing against a car that I strongly caution about. 1) Don't buy brand new cars. With few exceptions, they tank in value so dramatically in the first year or two you're really burning a lot of money. Buy a slightly used car and you'll save a ton on depreciation while still having something nice and a portion of a warranty, if such things matter to you (like if you're buying a VW/Audi product). 2) Don't get upside down by financing too much. This also plays into advice #1. I total so many customer cars that are upside down on the loan...and not by a little bit. Granted, some of these people went the JD Byrider route and are totally screwed for their stupidity. But a lot of others did no money down regular loans and still find themselves in quite a pickle, because they wind up (at best) with ZERO and no car. Worse yet if they still owe several grand to the lender and have no gap insurance.

The problem is credit is (was?) too easy to get and lenders didn't care about anything but selling the loan. People trusted the lender to tell them if they could afford it or not. People need to be better educated about personal finance. I know when I was in school back when Shelby Chargers were new the only thing they taught us was how to balance a check book.

As much as I dislike loans, sometimes it's one of those things you elect to do for a degree of happiness. Like most things, moderation is key. My wife had a brand new car when we met. Since then, she's driven only 100,000 mile+ stuff that certainly wouldn't impress any of her friends. After 20 years of marriage, I didn't mind taking out a 3 year note on a car (with over 20% down--would have done more, but the bank didn't want it!). Sometimes you can buy happiness.

Curmudgeon
Curmudgeon MegaDork
1/5/13 7:40 a.m.

I've spent a good bit of time the last 3 years cleaning up the disaster that was may dad's estate. What got him in trouble? A greedy trophy wife coupled with easy credit terms and what we now suspect was diminished reasoning capacity due to cancer. After a brush with credit card and car loan debt in my late 20's, I was already cautious. After seeing what happened to him, I am now even more cautious.

wbjones
wbjones UberDork
1/5/13 8:41 a.m.
z31maniac wrote:
wbjones wrote:
z31maniac wrote:
Duke wrote: They can get a handle on it... what they want is their cut of the interest they share with the lender when the dealer arranges the financing.
That's fine, if you use a public credit union or bank, you are going to get the same rate, but tell the dealership you'll let them do the financing and the price will come down a bit more.
no where near enough to make up for the amt of interest they're going to get ... unless you qualify for any of the super deal % rates
I don't think you are understanding, let me better explain. Let's say you want to use Bank of WBJones. For people with great credit and a strong income, you will get 2.99% if you apply directly with the bank. If my dealership uses Bank of WBJones, I'll also get the SAME 2.99% while paying less for the car..........the only person who makes less is Bank of WBJones. Is that more clear?

but you're not going to give that 2.99% to the majority of your customers ... where as the bank will ... you ( the dealership ) is out to make money ... I have zero problem with that .... that's why you're in business.... so you're going to try to make money on each and every transaction ... which includes the % you getting on each loan/car purchase ..

logdog
logdog GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
1/5/13 8:47 a.m.

I just want to see if I can turn this into a 6 pager.

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