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.
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 $10k that’s actually reliable where I am. A mid-90s Toyota with 300,000 miles maybe, but not anything under 150,000.
If you pay 500$ 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 .
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 wasn’t 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. It’s paid off now.
Tomorrow is not promised. Save for the future but don’t neglect being happy today. Go live a little.
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 €390/yr.
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?
In Denmark it is required by law that you have a bare-minimum insurance (to cover if you damage someone or something else). Is this not required in your country?
The point is probably that they don’t have a car to begin with
Don’t be too hard on them, in Europe we get very little spam calls. Most people even answer unknown callers.
I fail to see how this is relevant to my comment :D
I told one of these spam callers that my license has been legally revoked. It has been almost 15 years since I last got one of those calls. They used to be something that happened, at least, a few times per day.
I had no idea my insurance is so much. But it is a lot. If I think about it I’ll get angry.
You can take defensive driving courses to lower it though.
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.
sure, maybe. but FUCK Dave Ramsey.
I’m out of the loop. What’d they do?
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.
I was unemployed for most of last year and let my insurance lapse. I’d be lucky if anyone would insure me for $350/month.
I’d put money on a pretty messy driving history for the insurance to be that much.
Two cars (~$50k each), two adult drivers, one accident in the last 7 years, no tickets = $453/mo. Fuck California and the weak cunt Newsom that can’t get these greedy fuckers under control.
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.
Move somewhere you have mass transit wtf
Sure, I’ll sell my nice house in the countryside and use the money to buy something not even half the size in an urban centre so I can have the privilege of being able to use a bus. No thanks.
Dave Ramsey is a hack.
broken clock tho
Time is continuous, not discrete
Well most clocks are not continuous though.
Yeah but what if the clock is broken so it’s like 15 minutes off all the time? Then it’s never right. The right twice a day is just big idiom propaganda
That’s…the point of the saying.
Is he the idiot who demands you only pay for things in cash and store it in labeled envelopes?
Doesn’t that 1950s(?idk) advice kinda work for some people?
“Demands” though that’s odd
He’s right for most people first beginning to improve their financial health. He has probably gotten more people out of debt than any other ‘guru’. If that’s a hack, so be it, it works.
He once fired a pregnant employee because she wasn’t married and therefore must have had premarital sex. They’ve fired 9 people for pre marital sex. Wacky
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All you need to know about Dave Ramsey: i worked on his Jaguar XK.
Is that a particularly expensive jaguar? When I was car shopping I saw some jags for 20k or less so owning a Jag means absolutely nothing when it comes to wealth.
The trick is that it costs an absolute fortune to maintain them, that’s why they’re cheap used. I believe there Is a saying that goes something like “the only car more expensive than a luxury car is a used luxury car”
Nah he’s alright. There is no nuance in his advice but for the majority of his listeners that’s probably a good thing.
Yeah he has some shit personally takes and I hate the way he runs his company. He does give pretty decent financial advice though
I can give better advice in a similarly easy to consume manner, applicable to most.
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Invest in a low cost target date fund. Look at Vanguard target date funds for examples and pick a year close to your expected retirement date.
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Pay your highest interest debt before lower.
Both of these pieces of advice make you more money than doing what Ramsay says and are equally easy to understand.
Yes, but do people do it? No.
Do people actually do what Ramsey suggests, even if it isn’t mathematically perfect? Yes.
You’re under estimating the human factor.
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Dave Ramsey has excellent financial advice for a certain type of person. I bet 90% of people reading this need Dave Ramsey style advice.
Millions? I don’t think so. There is no investment that would turn $30K or whatever into millions that was safe enough to work for the majority of people. But it would be a significant help.
That being said, for most people, the amount you’d spend to live in a place where a car isn’t needed or constantly paying for ride share or taxis greatly exceeds the amount you’d save by not having a car for the vast majority of people, and that’s not even getting into the ableism issue.
And sure we could get into buying a cheaper, used car or whatever, but in the long term the maintenance costs, having to buy another car sooner, and other financial risks to cars outside of warrantee over a lifetime will add up similarly unless you’re really lucky or can repair your own cars.
and that’s not even getting into the ableism issue.
Infrastructure that requires people to drive is far more ableist than the inverse. As many people with a disability can’t drive at all (or driving is a significant challenge).
The whole, where do you live thing is super important. The last time we moved my wife and I were very adamant about a specific maximum commute length in car, or a length by transit. And getting somewhere to live that was easy to commute from. We compared the price including mass transit commute at the max distance to anything we were getting closer with the commute included from there too.
The differences were absolutely significant. Many places were cheaper to live an hour away, even with car payments, insurance, and gas. That’s absolutely ridiculous and part of so many problems from climate change to motor vehicle deaths.
We need to enforce mixed development, the people who work in an area need to be able to afford living in that area. Pushing the workers out should not be acceptable.
the people who work in an area need to be able to afford living in that area.
I read an article in my local paper that 95% of the workers in my town don’t live in town. And while there are new apartment buildings going up, paying $2000/mo for 300 sq ft without a washer/dryer or even an oven is not going to be attracting much of that 95% back.
Unless we get serious about building, that’s all that’s going to be available. Developers love the idea of cubicle sized housing.
$554 a month at 5% growth is $440k after 30 years. So yeah not millions.
Working life is more like 40 years. Those back end years are huge, it goes up to 840k. Which is why you’re supposed to start on your 401k right away. Of course 99% of people don’t get this talk until they’re 40; go through a poverty period after high school; or never make it out of paycheck to paycheck living for other reasons. (Like medical debt)
Very few people get the good pay, good contributions, and consequently the good retirement. We also completely lie to people about retirement. We tell them they have to scrimp and save so they aren’t homeless when they’re 80. In reality half of us will be dead by 75 and half again by 85.
S&P averaged about 10% over the last 30 years. That means it would be over 1.2 million.
And sure we could get into buying a cheaper, used car or whatever, but in the long term the maintenance costs, having to buy another car sooner, and other financial risks to cars outside of warrantee over a lifetime will add up similarly unless you’re really lucky or can repair your own cars.
Buying a low-mileage used car and even paying for a shop to do the maintenance is almost always cheaper than buying something with $500+ monthly payments. I don’t actually agree for the most part with Dave Ramsey (even about the entirety of this post)…but he’s correct that it is cheaper.
Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. So any car for that amount is not going to survive long. So most Americans still get loans for used cars.
And with interest rates so high, a payment of $550 will only get you about $25K. That’s enough for a decent new small sedan, but if you have kids (especially if 3 or more), that’s probably the minimum needed to get a used minivan that will last a while.
Anything else is only going to last a few years at best before needing major repairs.
I just did an autotrader search and in my (very unaffordable) area, there were lots of serviceable cars under 10k. If you live in a place with a garage you can even buy a used EV and eliminate whole categories of maintenance costs.
The whole point is to buy something that requires smaller or no monthly payments, and then bank the savings and eventually buy something better. “A couple of years” can do the trick in some cases.
That being said, for most people, the amount you’d spend to live in a place where a car isn’t needed or constantly paying for ride share or taxis greatly exceeds the amount you’d save by not having a car for the vast majority of people, and that’s not even getting into the ableism issue.
I disagree with everything else you say, as the other replies to you point out. But this is a really good point.
What commonly goes unsaid in these conversations of insurance cost is the immediate disputes that occur with the provider.
Why am I paying tens of thousands a year to engage in an argument when making a claim?
I was once rear ended at a red light. I was knocked unconscious and the driver drove off. A few kind witnesses called police who took a report. They got half his plate imprinted on my bumper, but never tracked him down. I had State Farm, and I was even paying extra for the “uninsured driver coverage”. They said they couldn’t cover it because until they had another driver’s information I was automatically at fault, even with the police report and witness accounts. They said it didn’t count as uninsured driver because it’s possible the guy had insurance. I was flabbergasted.
In the end I had a concussion and needed to take time off work for recovery and my short term disability insurance ended up suing State Farm because they didn’t want to pay for my medical treatment. State Farm agreed to cover medical care but only if it was recorded as my fault and I paid my deductible. In anger I tried to switch insurance companies but found out they have a shared database and since it was recorded as a hit and run my fault, nobody else would take me. And State Farm jacked my rate up 30%…
I realised in a similar, though less detrimental, encounter that true insurance comes in the form of dash cameras. For the equivalent of an insurance payment or two, a high fidelity video of the entire vehicle surroundings can be had.
Honestly though, with a few witnesses and half a plate, it’s a surprise they couldn’t find the car that drove into you. Decerning the colour, and style of car, surely it’d be only a handful of vehicles matching both the description and the numbers.
I’m sorry that happened to you.
That would require a cop to do more than the bate minimum, so its just not gonna happen.
Do you have any recommendations for dash camera solutions like you mention? I’ve been telling myself I need to get a dash cam but every time I start researching what to buy I feel like the market is a sea of wanky information and it’s hard to tell what is crap and what is solid.
Commenting here so i can check replies, as i also need recommendations.
here’s me, a grown ass adult with a car i paid off like 4 years ago - nothing special, a smallish commuter POS that gets 40mpg that i literally use to drive 4 miles to work and back.
i was paying about $630/year because i pay for a year at a time, and it’d be almost double that to pay monthly, like what the actual fuck? anyways, a few months ago i get this email from the insurance company telling me “hey get ready your policy will renew in 3 months, be sure to double check your payment method” so i log into my account and they were gonna raise my premium to $970/yr and there was literally no obvious way to see that they were gonna do that. it was a case of logging in, going through multiple levels of menus to get to the future policy, download a pdf of that policy, then view it offline.
well, i’m pissed, so i call them to find out what the hell they’re doing and why and they claimed it’s because i had gotten a speeding ticket. of course, they had zero information to share with me about that speeding ticket - no ticket number, no date/time, no address, nothing. i sure as hell don’t recall getting a speeding ticket, and in any case, with a spotless driving record, you’d think there’d be some kind of interfacing with me about it, but no. they claimed the ticket was real and i’d need to contact my DMV to find out more.
so i call them, the DMV, and after some hassle, find out they have ZERO record of any speeding ticket. so… back on the phone with the insurance company and they just wanna give me the shaft and the runaround no exceptions. i mean, i’m pissed now because it’s OBVIOUS fraud, right? Anyways, i get absolutely nowhere. so i tell them to cancel my policy and i woulda thought about contacting a lawyer about a possible case or something but, naw…
i still have the car, and it’s parked being unused. I swapped to riding bikes to and from work, sometimes an ebike, sometimes a fixie, and i’m the only cyclist on the road around here that I’ve ever seen and it’s sometimes really sketchy. but i plan to ride through the winter, dry or snowy, i don’t care.
it can get complicated, because i’m a single father, but honestly, fuck auto insurance, fuck cars, fuck car brain. we gotta make a stand at some point and I lament that we can’t really do it collectively.
I’m with you there.
Not too long ago, my company was informed by letter (as you should have been) of a price increase. I can’t remember exactly, but I want to say it was a 600% increase on the company’s rates. There’s never been any claims on the policy, they just decided they could do it to enough of their clients, and probably enough would pay it that it wouldn’t matter they’d lose a bunch.
I understand the provide we switched to actually provides greater coverage for less than the original amount we paid the first provider. Unbelievable.
It wasn’t specifically for insurance reasons, but I got rid of my car after I noticed I wasn’t driving very far. Now we have a couple cargo trailers and we do the shopping and the errands just as easily and we’re saving tens of thousands doing it. We go through the winter as well, it’s not for everyone but dress appropriately and have lights and you’ll do great.
I’ve had great luck going through an insurance broker for my insurance. The broker can be a mediator should the insurance company engage in sketchy nonsense, and can get you into some cushy insurance companies than only do B2B and don’t spend millions on consumer advertising. Plus brokers will know what insurance companies to go through for what buyers to likely get you the best rate
You are not kidding!
I got a motorcycle and paid for insurance. When someone stole my bike and police caught the guy and put it in the impound, my scummy ass insurance called me to go see if it’s okay? Like bro, that’s your job.
Then they said if I was willing to sign a contract that the bike was fine without allowing me to see it. I said no.
Finally they gave up and wrote me a check for the cost of the bike.
Goes to show how strange modern life is that it was easier for them to cut a cheque than send someone down there. Happens all the time unfortunately. I wonder if someone at the impound lot rode it home.
Not a motorcycle, but my car was hit (along with several others) by a guy evading the police. I wasn’t even in it, we were in a city and cars were parked along the street, and he came over a hill, ran a red light, t-boned someone, and then bounced against a bunch of cars down the street.
When I got the police report, I filed a claim with my insurance, which was the same insurance company as the criminal. They originally told me that, “There were 7 vehicles involved in this accident, and other vehicles were damaged much worse than yours, so we’re not sure if his policy will cover all of the damage… So we’ll have to file the claim under your policy, you’d just have to pay your deductible.”
Absolutely not, I told her. “Well Sir, you have to unders-”
“No, ma’am, YOU need to understand that your customer’s inability to be a responsible citizen is NOT my problem, and I am NOT having my premiums go up, or paying my deductible, when I did absolutely nothing wrong.” After escalating to a manager and giving her an earful while threatening to drop my policy with them effective immediately, they miraculously realized his policy would cover the damage to my car. Easy day, right?
Now, I’ll be honest: The damage to my car was completely cosmetic, but I was poor and could have really used some extra cash, hence why I was pursuing it. Well, brought the car in to be looked over by the insurance folks, and the assessed damage was like $800. Cool, I asked her for my check so I could go home.
“Oh, well, Sir, you still have a lien on the vehicle, and normally we would send it to your bank, and they would tell you where to go and then pay the repair shop.”
Oh, cool, well, that’s not what we’re doing, I already have a shop lined up, I said, but needed the money for the parts.
Big tall dude comes over, also an insurance employee, as the woman and I are going back and forth, and he chimes in and goes, “Well, Sir, y’know, typically the bank holding the lien wants to handle these things, and, y’know, if the repairs aren’t made and they repossess the vehicle, you could owe the repair costs.”
My response: “Huh, fascinating. Sounds like a conversation between my bank and I, and with all due respect, I don’t understand who you are to have that discussion on their behalf.”
“Just cut him the check,” as he walks away.
I fucking hate insurance companies.
I had a shitty white Kia Rio that I wrote off in a snowstorm. I borrowed my dad’s car to drive while I looked for a replacement I could afford, and after a few weeks my insurance said ‘we paid you the coverage. If you don’t put a new car on your policy, we’ll cancel it.’ ok, fine. I put my old junker (car before the Rio) on it - wasn’t even road worthy, but I had accident forgiveness on this policy and if I had to start over I’d get higher premiums.
I found a car a week later. Called the broker to switch the policy.
'we can’t remove this car from the policy unless we contact your bank first ’
What.
They claimed because I had bought my Rio with a bank loan that they couldn’t remove my junker without permission from the bank.
I argued with this person politely for 10 minutes, pointing out that I’d paid the car off 2 years prior. They said ‘well I’ll need to check with the underwriter then.’ fine. I get a call back 30m later, same person. ‘no, we need permission from the bank according to the underwriter.’
This pissed me off because I knew I was being lied to. “Now I know you’re lying to me. I have the cheque from the underwriter cashed in my account. They would not have issued it to me if there was any issue with the bank. I am not a customer of that bank, have not been for 2 years.”
‘well sir, I need to confirm that with the bank’
“If you contact the bank in reference to me in any way, shape, or form, I will sue you for breach of privacy and file complaints with every government office that I can. DO NOT CALL THE BANK. SWITCH IN THE NEW CAR.”
They refused. I called back 2 hours later, got someone else. Told them I needed the new car switched in.
They did it, and a week later I filed a written complaint to the broker about the other rep, firmly underscoring the lying.
No idea if it was related or not, but the branch got downsized away less than a year later.
Anyway, fuck insurance companies.
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.
depends where in EU
And they pay for terrible health insurance and health care
I work for a tiny city that’s basically a private enclave for the ultra-rich in the middle of a major city.
Literally every household is millionaires or better, and we have a lot of citizens whose names you’d know.
If it works for you, great, but are you sure you declared your vehicle use on your insurance correctly? Seems like you may have said it’s not a commuter vehicle
I have an impeccable driving record and only have liability abs gap on my car since it has so many miles it’s basically worthless as far as the insurance company is concerned. If it were to be totaled they’d give me like 500 bucks if I carried full coverage.
