Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Live Life or Drive Fancy

I was listening to Dave Ramsey last night, and he started out his broadcast with a rant about cars and car payments.  He said a whole lot, but the thing that stuck with me was that if you took the average car payment (I think he said $484.. holy cow, that's more than the mortgage on our first home was!), and instead of "always having a payment*" invested it in some good mutual funds, from age 30 to 60 or 70 (I don't recall which), that fund would have... millions in it.  Millions, people!  Wow.

Today on facebook, Dave Ramsey linked to a short video that explains how you can get your dream car (and even a millionaire-retirement!) while avoiding the 25% hit when you drive off the lot (this is obviously for a 'new' car), all without having to walk everywhere. :)

The video is here.




*Believe it or not, I had never heard this "conventional wisdom" until a few years back when my mother-in-law mentioned it.  She said something like, "you know how they say you'll always have a car payment...?"  I had to look blankly for a moment, because I really didn't know "they" said that!  I had only briefly lived that way, and it certainly hadn't been the norm in my family.

3 comments:

MamaJ said...

Good video! I'll have to pass that one on. We've owned several cars, but we've also financed more than a few! Right now, our payment is $426 and it burns me up to pay that much every month! Can't wait to have it paid off!

mary grace said...

We had to take on a car payment when we bought our 12 pass. van this past fall. Praise God, it will be paid off in February ... but I can't imagine a payment that big! Ours is $199, and it still makes me mad that we had to finance! (Our other car is a beater '92 Volvo that we paid cash for in 2000)

EllaJac said...

MamaJ, wow, I bet that will be nice to pay off! That's nearly the grocery budget right there, huh? :)

Mary Grace, I'm sure the 12-passenger van is a blessing to your family. Good to have it paid off soon, too! We were pregnant with #4 in 2009 and driving our Camry... REALLY needed to upgrade (though I still maintain that trunk could've hauled a couple...). Broke another Ramsey rule to do it (used emergency fund), but made up for it eventually. :)