LMFAO. Does anyone see that Audi Q7 in the 1M to 1.5M category 
The tlx and f150 is only for physicians, Lawyers and Wall Street 
Get what your saying about the Camrys, and not to be trite, but I drive through a super affluent neighborhood often and you cannot see what cars are in the driveway, let alone the mansion, because you can’t see them behind the gate, the walls, the hedges, the garage doors…
Probably just started debate about what affluent means these days in this country. Sorry.
Yes I know totally about the difference between the 1.5mill houses and the 5+ mill. All the houses under 2 mill you can typically see their lineup. When you get to the estates you can rarely see the houses, let alone the cars parked there.
I should rephase it. Affluent employees drive a lot of Camrys. Affluent employers are more discreet about their vehicles. It used to be physicians wouldn’t daily drive a nice car bc it showed they were profiting from others pain. With the start of “lifestyles of the rich and famous” then “cribs” etc, the nuveau riche don’t mind flaunting like everyone else.
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I’d say 2mil in Southern California is pretty affluent and yeah, you’re going to see a lot of Honda accords and Toyotas, probably a few jeeps for the teens. BMW 3-series (and x3) are everywhere. The doctor lot at the local hospital is full of teslas and then everything from 10 year old Honda civics with McDonald’s trash in the passenger seat to Mercedes suvs. Not much on the real high end. The patient lot has much nicer cars overall.
A while back there was a book written about the lifestyles of actual millionaires in America. The #1 vehicle driven was the f150.
True wealth is a lifelong process of saving and not wasting. As I pointed out earlier, saving a couple Benjamins every month over time is the difference of a million dollars. And not as much time as you’d think.
While I get your point. Tax is irrelevant if you have no money coming in. The way to get wealthy is to make a lot of money. Yes wealthy people save on taxes but it’s a moot point if you don’t have the money to begin with.
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Or you know making a nice living helping people.
Apologies, I need to correct a factual error in my earlier statement, also excerpted above.
We got $9,000 for the Prius, not $7,000.
So that was $14,000 OOP / 120 months = $117/month.
If you want to be financially responsible, all you have to do is buy used Land Rovers
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I couldn’t figure out if it was a serious article or a joke…
How many miles driven in those 120 months?
I didn’t come back here to reopen an argument.
I just didn’t want to leave behind any misinformation.
The topic of the Prius sale came up over lunch yesterday, and I was reminded that $7,000 was the offer from Carmax.
We held out and got $9,000 with a private party sale.
Not bad, so if we assume a 10% market rate you only lost ~$5k versus investing that money and leasing, but closer to ~$16k versus investing and financing… Your high residual obviously helps…
1994 is a great Camry year and fits right into the dave ramsey example of a cash clunker that will run forever but.
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His advice is completely sound for the average American that wants some semblance of a true retirement. All disposable income should be invested but only after removing all debts.
That being said I’m not sure why we keep opening Dave Ramsey or any financial guru threads for that matter. Most on this site are trying to get the maximum amount of vehicle for the least amount of money. Roughly 98% of frequenters to this site have unrealistic leasing goals which leads me to believe they could use some Dave Ramsey in their lives.
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This is one of the things that bothers me about him. Again I understand why he preaches what he preaches (because most people don’t understand money and his ways are simple).
But take for example:
You have $50k in debt at a 4% apr with a payment of $775/month. It takes you 72 months to pay it off. You have $225 of disposable income. Your options are you can invest that money at an annual rate of return of 8% or you can throw it at the loan.
Scenario 1: You follow Dave Ramsey’s advice - you pay $1,000/month towards the loan, now it takes you 59 months to pay off the loan. At the end of that 59 months, you can now invest that $1,000 at the annual 8% rate of return. After 72 months you are debt free have amassed $19,057.
Scenario 2: You pay the minimum payments of $775/month on the loan and you instead invest your disposable income of $225 at the annual 8% rate of return. After 72 months you are debt free and have amassed $21,069.
What absolutely boggles my mind is he suggests to not invest in your company’s 401k plan while you’re getting out of debt. For a lot of companies with decent benefits that include company matching… that’s 100% rate of return on the first x% of your income! You’re giving up 100% rate of return to pay off a loan at 4% interest? That’s idiotic. I don’t think it’s too much complexity to tell people, “yeah prioritize getting out of debt, but at the bare minimum contribute to your 401k up to the company match amount”.
What your missing is most people students loans are far above 4%. That being said every scenario is different but most don’t just have student loans. There is credit cards, store cards, individual loans for cash while in school. If your lucky and you come out of college with nothing but a paid off reliable cheap car and student loans you are lucky and can skip some of Daves steps. There is clearly a happy mix of investing and paying down loans but your scenarios are invalid to what he actually teaches. For one if you have $700 student loans and only $200 disposable income you have far worse problems like wrong career path, or other debts that leave you with $200. What your missing is that his theory is avoid giving free money away and avoid the interest that accrues on a normal payment schedule. Again your scenario works because of a single school debt and a interest rate that is not on par with the national average.
I think you missed the point.
Also, I don’t recall mentioning anything about student loans.
Dave Ramsey says “ALL” debt needs to be paid off before investing, regardless of interest rate. That’s what I have an issue with, because a debt with a 4% interest rate for example, it’s not mathematically advantageous to pay it off as quickly as possible. But like I mentioned before, he operates under the assumption that people aren’t financially savvy and need psychological cues to let them know they’re doing well and that they need to keep doing.
Sorry assumed you meant student loans since I don’t know anyone that just has 50k of debt at 4%. Unless you got a mini house in which case good for you your ahead of the curve lol. Again your scenario doesn’t work because there are no loans at 4% outside of home, student loan refinancing or a vehicle. Again at which point if your home, student loans and car for in under 50k and you consolidated them to 4%…then your essentially following Dave Ramsey’s plan. And for those financially savvy you did some research, you learned to invest…you learned what it means to be financially stable an have a great chance at retirement. For those like a lot of people who call into Dave Ramsey they got behind, got sick, were dumb, took a chance on a failed business…regardless much like everything else in life…turn and look the other way. For the rest of people looking to get out and not knowing where to turn research…much like we do here.
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The point is you can split the math any way… if your interest rate on your debt is lower than what you can earn in returns, it makes more financial sense to invest your money to achieve those returns than it does to throw the extra money at the debt.
Obviously things like credit cards, or other high interest loans it is advisable to pay off as quickly as possible. But there are plenty of loans that hover around the 4% mark depending on credit rating… lots of auto loans, student loans, mortgages, HELOC, business loans, etc. Doesn’t really matter, the point again is if you’ve borrowed cheap money, use your free capital to invest rather than throw at the cheap loan.
Like I said before, I understand why he preaches what he does - because it’s simple and people who aren’t financially savvy are able to follow it.