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The whole "old, cheap car" thing is way more complicated than Dave Ramsey makes it out to be. In the Northeast and Midwest old cars are going to be rusty junk and it won't work there. But you have to be a real car guy to make older cars actually cheap to run. You have to know which specific makes and models are good, and you have to be able to inspect the individual car you are offered to determine what its needs are, and almost all older cars for sale will have some needs. Just planning to "get an older Toyota" is too simplistic - you can find older Toys that are in fact fright pigs.
But my main drivers are a 95 Cougar XR-7 with that nearly everlasting 4.6 engine, and an 82 Scirocco. Both were bought cheap, both have had needs that I mostly took care of, and the Scirocco in particular is great with $5 gas.
Old cars work just fine in the northeast. My last car was 18 years old and had 315,000 miles before it finally died ('98 Acura CL). My brother has been driving a Shelby charger since he bought it new 30 years ago. There are lots of old cars here. No garage for either of us, and I lived at the beach when I owned the Acura.
The whole "old, cheap car" thing is way more complicated than Dave Ramsey makes it out to be. In the Northeast and Midwest old cars are going to be rusty junk and it won't work there. But you have to be a real car guy to make older cars actually cheap to run. You have to know which specific makes and models are good, and you have to be able to inspect the individual car you are offered to determine what its needs are, and almost all older cars for sale will have some needs. Just planning to "get an older Toyota" is too simplistic - you can find older Toys that are in fact fright pigs.
But my main drivers are a 95 Cougar XR-7 with that nearly everlasting 4.6 engine, and an 82 Scirocco. Both were bought cheap, both have had needs that I mostly took care of, and the Scirocco in particular is great with $5 gas.
I just sold a 21 BMW M4 for a $1500 loss after 14 months/9700 miles. If you add the interest on the loan ($680) my total cost was $2180 plus fuel. No maintenance (free by BMW), no tires, didn't even pay for satellite radio (free for the first year). Car was 80K new, $156 a month seems ok
Dealer put it on their lot for 8K over MSRP, then after a couple of price drops they resold it for more than I bought it for new!
Old cars work just fine in the northeast. My last car was 18 years old and had 315,000 miles before it finally died ('98 Acura CL). My brother has been driving a Shelby charger since he bought it new 30 years ago. There are lots of old cars here. No garage for either of us, and I lived at the beach when I owned the Acura.
Those CL's were great cars! Those Shelby Chargers are rare to see on the road today. Neat concept, quick for their day but I never wanted one
What is your opinion of Dave Ramsey and his advice ? Thanks.
In my opinion, using advice from someone who has a radio or TV when it comes to financial matters isn't a good idea. Because not everything applies to your specific situation. That's where the experts come in and advise you for your particular needs and goals. You are better off having your own financial advisor to counsel you from a major brokerage house.
So many people have misinformation about how to handle money, investments and social security it's sad. If they do nothing else, listening to someone like him is better than being on their own or doing nothing. Breaks my heart to hear stories of people screwing up their retirement plans by doing foolish things when it could have been easily avoided.
Those CL's were great cars! Those Shelby Chargers are rare to see on the road today. Neat concept, quick for their day but I never wanted one
Yes I loved that car! Only issue was it’s hard to buy large items with a 2-seater. When I bought my niece car seats for my niece’s twins, I had to make 2 trips to get them home due to the size of the boxes.
In my opinion, using advice from someone who has a radio or TV when it comes to financial matters isn't a good idea. Because not everything applies to your specific situation. That's where the experts come in and advise you for your particular needs and goals. You are better off having your own financial advisor to counsel you from a major brokerage house.
So many people have misinformation about how to handle money, investments and social security it's sad. If they do nothing else, listening to someone like him is better than being on their own or doing nothing. Breaks my heart to hear stories of people screwing up their retirement plans by doing foolish things when it could have been easily avoided.
Financial advisors though mainly advise you about investments. Dave Ramsey was much more than that it was about budgeting, dealing with credit card debt, etc.
I just sold a 21 BMW M4 for a $1500 loss after 14 months/9700 miles. If you add the interest on the loan ($680) my total cost was $2180 plus fuel. No maintenance (free by BMW), no tires, didn't even pay for satellite radio (free for the first year). Car was 80K new, $156 a month seems ok
Dealer put it on their lot for 8K over MSRP, then after a couple of price drops they resold it for more than I bought it for new!
I bought my car new for $21k, checked carmax 5 months ago and they offered me $23k for it, and I checked last month and the offer was $24k (14k miles and about 17 months old). Crazy times.
There's also the issue of maintenance and the general hassle of owning an unreliable car that Dave doesn't account for.
I had a 2015 Cherokee from 2018-2020. That car probably cost me $6,000 in those two years. In May 2020, the car left me stranded on vacation. I had to take another couple days of vacation and stay in a hotel to fix the car there. That was about $500, on top of the $2,000 in maintenance I spent at the end of 2019. New tires were put on in 2019. There was some previous maintenance in 2018 and 2019.
The engine went out in June 2020 at 105k miles or so. I took it to a dealership and a local mechanic - the cheaper quote was about $3,500.
I had already sunk thousands into it. I wasn't going to sink thousands more. The whole "good money after bad thing." I ended up trading it for a new Forester at 0% for 60 months.
Other than routine maintenance, the Forester hasn't really cost me anything. Who knows what the next shoe to fall on the Jeep would have been, how costly it would have been, and how big of an inconvenience it would cause.
There's also the issue of maintenance and the general hassle of owning an unreliable car that Dave doesn't account for.
I had a 2015 Cherokee from 2018-2020. That car probably cost me $6,000 in those two years. In May 2020, the car left me stranded on vacation. I had to take another couple days of vacation and stay in a hotel to fix the car there. That was about $500, on top of the $2,000 in maintenance I spent at the end of 2019. New tires were put on in 2019. There was some previous maintenance in 2018 and 2019.
The engine went out in June 2020 at 105k miles or so. I took it to a dealership and a local mechanic - the cheaper quote was about $3,500.
I had already sunk thousands into it. I wasn't going to sink thousands more. The whole "good money after bad thing." I ended up trading it for a new Forester at 0% for 60 months.
Other than routine maintenance, the Forester hasn't really cost me anything. Who knows what the next shoe to fall on the Jeep would have been, how costly it would have been, and how big of an inconvenience it would cause.
That's all dependent on the car you choose. My Acura was 5 years old when I bought it for $13,000, with 33,000 miles. It lasted to 315,000 miles and the only major expenditure I had in all those miles was replacing the transmission for about $2000.
Financial advisors though mainly advise you about investments. Dave Ramsey was much more than that it was about budgeting, dealing with credit card debt, etc.
Even the financial advisors mostly talk about retirement planning, "paying yourself first", maximizing your 401K, diversification and so on. They show colorful bar-charts showing that after 30 years of diligent savings and dogged faith in the stock market, you too can amass $1M. What they don't really discuss is what might be termed "wealth management". They don't say much about portfolio theory, the efficiency frontier, the role of things like currency fluctuations (note the current disaster befalling internationally diversified US-based investors, with the ordinately strong US dollar). How often do they discuss private equity, venture capital and that sort of thing? It's almost as if investment advice perversely omits people who, you know, actually invest.
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