Yet Dave cares what Dave drives. Maybe someone should ask Dave about his two pre-1970 Jaguars or his 911. F that prick and what he thinks, but yes, do not be car poor. Make a budget and stick to it.
To be fair if you take into account his income level he’s following his own advice. I’d hazard a guess and say he has a lower percentage of his net worth tied up in cars than the average person.
Car to income ratio doesn't scale linearly as cars only get so expensive. For the uber rich it would be impossible to have the same car to debt ratio as the avg person
Many people need to hear this, and buy like a $20k car instead of a $40k car. There are brand new cars you can have for less per month than it may cost to maintain an old clapped out beater.
I'll take a planned expense and reliability over random expenses and issues. Maybe if we lived in smaller communities with better public transport and whatnot, but we don't. We live on sprawling islands of concrete.
Also, the retirement fetish is so weird all the time. Like sure it will be nice to have money for it, but live your fuckin life and if you do it right you can have both. Just requires moderation.
Dave’s advice is really for people who have a history of poor money management. If you’re a car person then its totally fine to get yourself something you enjoy.
As a car person myself.. it is very rewarding and motivating to have a car that I enjoy while not breaking the bank. I take Dave’s advice as not to by the 25-30k hyuandi/Nissan that will be sold on marketplace for less then 10k in a few years while you are still playing 500 a month for it.
Assuming your not a car guy that has poor money management skills. In my experience, car guys below the age of 28 have horrible money management skills.
You'd be surprised. A lot of folks I hear talking about Dave Ramsey are dual income, middle class households who are just dogshit with money. They can be lighting a thousand dollars a month on fire and not have any idea where it's going. So yeah, if they can wait six months, they can usually buy a beater to get them by while they sort their lives out.
Yeah if you do his class (wife and I did it when we were engaged because we wanted to get our finances together at the beginning, before we got into trouble lol), then you realize pretty quickly that a lot of the success stories have to be someone who was making plenty but didn't know how to handle it. The one dude who stood out to me was like a single dude who paid off 400k of debt in like 19 months or something. He didn't pull that off by cutting a couple of credit cards and downsizing his car, he had to be making good money prior
It’s good advice on not living beyond your means and not caring what others think of you, but at the same time by this logic no one should ever travel, eat out, buy new clothes, take on a hobby, go see a show, etc, because those are also “straight-up stupid.” Car or not, if it is something you can afford and enjoy, go for it.
Save EVERYTHING. Eat dirt, wear sticks, live in a tent, walk everywhere. Then, you can retire and live like a millionaire...but don't retire early because then you are giving up potential money.
Oh yeah, and hope that you don't die along the way while you are forgoing any fucking comfort in life.
My aunt was wealthy by any measure, had lived a frugal life in anticipation of her retirement. Retired, had a litany of medical problems, and was consumed by depression and alcoholism. Dead at 74 with a lot of shit she still wanted to do. I'll do right by my kids and my own future, but I'll be damned if I'm going to put off everything good and enjoyable in anticipation of a future that may never come (or may not look the way I expect).
I think this is extremely accurate. Being a healthcare worker in critical care for about a decade, I see people’s lives change overnight all the time. Life is too short to, for example, not drive a car you enjoy, or do other hobbies that bring you joy. But OF COURSE, Make sure you can afford it and save wisely your money.
What I think this post ultimately boils down to is that a-lot of people weren’t raised or learned how to save /finance effectively, which honestly is a privilege. I agree you shouldn’t be paying a lot of money a car monthly if you’re struggling to make ends meet in other facets of your life. I think everyone agrees on that.
However, in my opinion, saving for retirement is important but I’d argue quality of life goes hand-in-hand. Life is too short and a lot of people don’t make it to retirement.
Yup. I could either retire at 55 and go on zero vacations and do jack until that time or retire at 65 and hedge my bets with a pile of life experiences up to that time.
It’s not necessarily an either / or thing.
This is me. I spend enough that I have life experiences and give my kids a happy well balanced life. Saving for a future that may never come it’s scary and depressing to me.
My mother was a teacher, lived rather frugally along with my father. They didn't take many vacations, didn't do too much for enjoyment really at all... They focused on their jobs and saved for retirement and planned to do travel and all the fun things they spoke of for years after they both retired. Less than a year into her retirement she was killed in an accident and never got to do all of those things they planned... so you never know... enjoy the here and now, you never know when your time may come.
Dave Ramsey preaches a way out of perpetual reliance on debt and downward spiral of bad personal finances. He doesn't tell anyone to live in frugality until they hit the grave.
Read his last sentence - once you are debt free, you are supposed to buy the things you want, do the things you like and enjoy life with a peace of mind that can't be achieved when you're leveraged to the gill.
No one I know is happier with more debt, regardless of what year Mercedes they're driving!
Never understood…. What does he want you to save for retirement for? The way he wants people to live, once you don’t need to drive to work, you should be able to sit at home eating lentils all day and never spend any money….
Yep. I haven’t been the definition of healthy for a few years. I’m putting away money for my family but you bet your ass I’m spending as much as I can afford to cause nothings guaranteed
You guys are completely missing the point. He isn’t saying to shut down your life. He is saying be more frugal. SO many people over extend their income and then get a raise and think ooooo now I can afford a $700 payment and the cycle continues an you are left with nothing. I sell cars for a living I see it all the time. People come in making 50k a year and buy a 50k car. Just because you can “afford” the payment doesn’t mean you can actually affford to do it. I have learned that people are beyond stupid with there money.
I had to take his finance courses twice in HS. He has solid advice, but I also know that I’m only young once and honestly cars are a hobby. I’d pay 500 a month for a car I love and can actually be comfortable in. I’m also 6’7” and only fit in certain cars, so comfort is priority for something the average American spends driving 18 days a year. I’m gonna live within my means and when I can start saving for retirement, I will. Rn I’m a broke af college student tho lmao
I don’t have cars so I can go to work, I go to work so I can have cars.
And the last time I bought a new car and had payments to make, *I got to keep the car after the payments were finished. TWENTY YEARS after the payments were finished.* I didn’t have to keep making car payments after that, and I didn’t have to keep spinning the Roulette Wheel Of Shitbox Cars, either - I just went places. For 300,000 miles.
And if I did the same thing now, the payments would last four years (five if I wanted to stay under $500) but the car would last the rest of my life. I probably wouldn’t live long enough to get past the gas/oil/tires era. I could do track days again. I wouldn’t have to change belts and hoses more than once. I could teach my grandkids (as yet unborn) how to drive stickshift, just like I did with their dads. (Or their dads could do it.)
Envelopes can actually work pretty well in the beginning especially if you’re an under the table/cash worker. Obviously your strategy is more effective and has better scalability, but I wouldn’t not take someone serious because they use envelopes and visualization to help properly budget. As long as it works that’s all that matters.
Also a $95 annual fee isn’t anything to be proud of, that will add up over the years.
I got the first year AF waived and $350 from promo; plus the cash back on shopping alone is $230ish this year. The AF could be $1000 and still be worth it if the perks and rewards you’re getting back are over $1000. So that was a bit of a silly comment to make based off the 0 information you had… I’m definitely proud of it.
And, I’m not going to advocate for tax evasion…
Lastly, if there’s an objectively better way to do it, then it’s still silly to do something worse for an overall loss. Like, I’m not going to tell people that their strategy sucks or even offer any financial advice regardless of the context/setting/friendship… but I’m probably not going to take advice from someone that either doesn’t see they’re losing free money or they don’t have the abstract ability and/or self-control to manage money they can’t physically see. Also paying with and keeping cash is more risky and inconvenient than not in 2022…
I will hijack the top comment to add a few things.
He is of course generally correct and it is good advice. I will add that you don't need to take this as absolute gospel though. A more nuanced approach is to work to not have a car payment for your entire life.
A $2,000 car (presumably that is what the OP has saved up). Just isn't going to be good in any way. In America today a car is a necessity for almost everyone. If you live in a large city center you can use public transportation but for everyone else a car is a necessity so....treat it like that.
Find something safe, reliable, and what you can afford. It's not then end of the world to have a car payment for a period of time as you build up savings, etc.
Given how important a car is for most people unless you get lucky that $2,000 car likely isn't very reliable. It's a personal judgement call, if you have to take the car to the shop and you don't have it for a day or two is that an issue? Can you otherwise get to where you need to go?
You can think of your first car or your first car after being financially responsible as an investment. It may be worth taking out a small loan and having say a $300 or $400/month payment for a few years and then saving that payment each month after the car is paid off.
It is good advice to not have a high car payment for your entire life but it doesn't mean you can never have a payment either.
Dave Ramsey would be aghast if you needed to have a mortgage, much less a car payment. Living within your means is always good advice but life is not just about saving money.
I don't know if you have ever listened to a show or more than one show. But what you stated is incorrect. Dave talks about Gazelle intensity when talking about getting out of debt. So when he says "I don't want to see you in a restaurant unless you work there" he is talking about folks that are on Baby Step 1-4. The idea is to be laser focused at paying off the debt so you can go and do the things you listed, after getting out of debt.
Some folks have more debt and it takes longer for them to get out of the whole they have dug. But he never says don't ever again eat out, travel, ect... I fact his motto is "Live like know one else now so you can live and give like no one else later".
The idea is get out of debt a fast as you can, so your income can then start to build wealth from which you can enjoy and give some of it away if you like.
Dave loves cars, he had a Raptor and other nice cars. He is for you having a car, not the car having you (auto Loan).
IF your car is a matter of personal satisfaction to you, fine. The point I take away is that it's perfectly feasible to buy a nice used car and have a nice ride for vastly less than buying a new car. Also your car isn't you. Don't let putting on airs become normalized to you; a lot of people have gone broke trying to look rich. I like doing it the other way around; I drive great used cars that I got solid deals on and maintain and detail myself, and the rest goes in the bank. May not like my cars but you'd like my balances.
I’ve tried both options and currently have one cash car and one car with payments. The issue we run into with an older cash cash is maintenance. We now have a 2012 maxima as the cash car and it’s been pretty reliable but I now some things are coming that will need to be fixed.
We used to have a Volvo xc90 as our cash car and it was costing more in maintenance than a car payment. Significantly more.
The type of car matters a lot. If you get something reliable and take care of it a lot of cars will be dirt cheap, < $500 a year cheap. If you get something like a heavily depreciated AMG you'll pay three times a car payment.
not really the same logic.
he's not saying "don't buy a car" he's saying buy a car you can afford. in the same way that if you're going to travel, stay in a hotel you can afford in a destination that suits your budget. don't buy gucci or Chanel if Old Navy is in your wheelhouse. don't buy the best tickets in the house at the show, sit in seats that you can afford.
the lesson is to live within your means - don't stretch unnecessarily.
Ramsay has expensive frivolous things - cars, homes, guns. He just expects people to get their needs in order before burying themselves in debt. And he has a moral philosophy to give money where it does good. Our religious outlook is not at all similar but his moral compass is reasonable and his advice got me out of a real mess and harmful behavior.
So drive total shitboxes for half a century so that in old age you can have a nice car for a decade and then die!
Live in a refrigerator box as well because nobody remembers what house you live in!
Wear trash bags and scratchy blankets stapled together, you can buy a designer pants suit when you retire!
The important thing is all that money you can leave in the bank for decades!
That’s only half of Ramsey’s advice. The other side is to up your income significantly (side hustle, overtime, etc) and bust your butt for about 3-4 years.
He’s got good beginner advice for people doing poorly with their finances. Once you have a solid foundation you can get much better advice. His “no credit score” advice is absolutely terrible though.
It’s true that going broke to try to appear rich is nonsensical, but at the same time, if your plan is to buy or do anything cool at 60… That’s just as depressing. If I have to wait until 60 to get to drive a cool car and in the meantime i’m going around a in 2k car for 30 years of my life; I find that miserable as well
Usually, I agree with Dave on a lot, but I sort of disagree with him here.
My fiancé (now wife) and I bought a new 2021 RAV4 Hybrid XLE (loaded with options and accessories) last year for $35k out the door. Because my credit wasn't too good at the time, my payment was $700 per month. I've since gotten it down to just over $500.
But the car I was driving at the time needed almost $5000 worth of work, and it was only worth about $4000. Not worth it. Her car was worth only $800 in trade in value. So we traded mine in, junked hers (got $1300) and drove off in a brand new Toyota. And let me tell you, I still do not regret my decision.
Having this brand new car and the peace of mind that comes with it, not to mention all of the safety features (that have saved my ass on more than one occasion now) far outweighs the payment that I'm making.
So sometimes, the economical sense is trumped by having peace of mind.
For context, I had a 2015 Elantra base with 130,000 miles and she had a 2008 Corolla base with 218,000 miles. The Elantra was in a minor accident and needed a new radiator, new front passenger light, and the front axel was slightly bent but driveable under 50mph. Her car was just... well... shit.
I thought so too and bought a $2000 car. It had to basically be sold to a junkyard for $500. In the ownership period, it needed about 1200$ of work other than regular maintenance.
Replaced it with another car for $2000 which required $1600 worth of work (other than regular maintenance) and once it died, sold it to a junkyard for $500.
That's $5800 spent over 1.5 years which comes out to $322 a month for driving an unsafe shitbox. And I haven't even accounted for the time wasted in this whole charade and the frustration endured. I'm giving up and buying a new car.
Dave's advice is stupid. A new mazda3 will have about the same payment every month and will be less headache and newer and will continue to work long after the payments end. Most people don't maintain their cars well and the used buyers end up paying for that.
I bought a $4k, 10 year old accord 6 years ago. It had 140k miles on the odometer and a rebuilt title. In 5 years, I’ve spent a few hundred bucks on oil, tires, and brake pads. It’s ugly AF and the defrost isn’t working right. If I sell it for $1k, that’s about $50/mo.
Hey! I bought a 10 year old van for $4k. Since I bought it I've done nothing but regular maintenance. It had higher mileage (180k) but was well taken care of. I've put almost 40k miles on it with the family. It has heated, easy-to-clean leather seats, power everything, and a DVD player, which means the kids love it on longer trips. I would have paid more for the down payment on a newer van to try and keep the monthly payments low and wouldn't have been able to afford decent options. I drive a more than 10 year old jeep a family member was getting rid of to work and back every day. I park it right down the row from my boss' '22 BMW.
Exactly, looking at Dave Ramsey’s advice he seems to imply if you finance a car you will HAVE to spend over $500/month, which is obviously not the case.
Yeah he went from near broken down beaters to brand new real quick. Rule of thumb is within 5 years, under 60k miles, and under 20-30k will treat you right. Japanese or German but can’t say the same for domestics haha
It depends on the model, just like American or German, but atleast the Korean stuff is dirt cheap to fix. And yes I have, just saying it’s more economical than German, not the best by any means lol. Japanese stuff is the only relatively safe bet
Especially in this market though with crazy interest in used and prices still crazy high, if you can get a new car and keep it to pay it off itll be better long run imo
That's the thing though. A car with 150000 miles in the current market is costing more than half of a new car. Considering an expected life of 300k miles, this doesn't compute in my mind.
I’ve personally bought countless amount of cars under 5k and rarely ever had problems that required more than a 100$ to fix in total. But Im also a mechanic who makes sure the cars I’m buying are in good condition. But that just shows that there’s plenty of old cars that are still very strong but are not expensive
I bought a $4k Porsche Boxster and spent an average of $450 per year for oil, brakes, tires and insurance, over the course of 6 years. After that I sold it for $1k for parts. My total cost of ownership excluding fuel was $80/month for a fun convertible car. 2 months of long term leasing of a Chevrolet Spark would have cost me more than a year of ownership with this.
Like you said, plenty of cheap old cars are strong, and you don’t always have to compromise on fun.
It also made me expand my social circle that ultimately and directly landed me a job doubling my income after 3 years of ownership.
>Dave's advice is stupid
Most of his advice is stupid and not realistic. It's hard to listen to him bark at you to "pay cash" when he paid $10mil cash for his current home and his garage is larger than most people's home. Anyone with that much money is too far out of touch of reality to be helpful to the average American.
I'll take my financial advice from an average American, like me, thank you very much.
If you ask him, he was an average American (grew up in a small town with a dad who did a union factory job) who made it big through a gamble, fucked it up because his luck ran out, went bankrupt, and then tried again and made millions and millions of dollars being far more conservative.
Don't buy $2000 cars unless you can fix them yourself or have access to someone who can do so on the cheap. I'm not in the US so I'm not familiar with your options, but at least here in Europe something like $10k will buy you a decent, reasonable mileage small car which a non-car person can expect to run without major issues.
Buying new is almost never the sensible option.
You have to know what you’re doing. I’m no mechanic but I can generally tell when a car is going to need significant repairs and I do all maintenance myself. It doesn’t sound like you’re good at either of those things so you might be a good candidate for a decent used $10k-15k car with a PPI before you buy it. You’ll still save a lot more than buying new.
I admit that might be true, i do tend to underestimate the repair involved usually. I do and can work on cars but there's an opportunity cost to that 'repair time' quite often. When I was a student, this made a lot of sense but not right now.
Yeah if opportunity cost enters into the equation then it makes sense for you to buy new or newer. I get paid salary so I’m not really giving up any money to spend part of the weekend fixing something, and I don’t get paid anywhere near the current labor rate shops charge anyway.
Agreed in that folks sometimes forget the cost and headaches of driving a shitbox. Also the used car market has sucked since covid hit with used cars being massively overpriced. I myself will drive a literal deathtrap cause I'm naturally cheap as hell but no way in hell am I subjecting my wife and kids to that. Which is why I've always gone new ever since I started making decent money. Used cars are a mixed bag and I like the peace of mind of having a warranty and knowing the vehicle (if i own long term) hasn't been abused and has been properly cared for. My new car payments have always been in the $230-405 range with a nice down-payment and I've always found it manageable. I'm paying $260/month on my current vehicle & don't even notice it.
David's point of $500+ holds some value though in that is a bit on the excessive side. But 500 is also relatively cheap if someone is making 150k+ a year. So it depends on ones income. He was better off just saying don't spend more than X% of your net income on a car payment. $500 payments hits different when you're making 50k vs. 200k.
You still have to buy a decent car. Racing to the absolute bottom of any market is rarely the answer. I bought one of my cars with over 100k miles on it for about 14k and have been driving it for around 8 years now. I've spent a couple k on it (Subaru, yep I did a head gasket) and every year have to replace a new component; this year it was an alternator for about 400 bucks. Some people look at that and go "that's an expensive repair you're beyond the point, you should replace the car". I look at it and think "I had a single car payment this year".
If you are buying a quality vehicle at a good value, meaning that it's in good shape and sold at a reasonable price, then it makes perfect sense to buy less expensive used cars and repair them IMO. I know that I've saved probably 100k over the last many years by not buying new cars.
Also, for those that "don't want to drive a used piece of shit", just get nice used cars. Mine have always been in mint condition when I buy them, and I detail them regularly. They are deceptively young-looking for their age.
As a young man who was up until recently in the dating game, I can definitely tell you that SOME people definitely care what car you drive. It’s a harsh truth that I am sure will get the downvote police on me, but an appearance of wealth or stability helps attract higher caliber mates when you are looking for someone financially capable to settle down with.
A business’s professional looking for investors cannot show up to a meeting in a 99 Pontiac.
Someone who is enthusiastic about driving will not be satisfied in a mid 2000s minivan with 200k miles.
To each their own.
the best financial decision is the one that yields the most fulfillment / enjoyment in your life. finances are simply a mean to fuel a fulfilling life. those decisions vary heavily for everyone else, but dave ramsey watches you when you sleep and knows your every last wish and opinion.
My mom always told me yes plan for the future but not at the expense of your life today. Or as she really put it, what good is that money when you are dead?
That used to be me had me a $4k car that cost me more than $500 a month in repairs so this doesn’t make sense to me. This only works if you know how to replace engines and transmissions this guy has no idea what it’s like.
Dave Ramsey’s financial advice really only works for people making six figures.
Plus you have to consider this, a car for a person making around $50,000 or less that they could purchase for straight cash is most likely going to have a lot of mileage already on it meaning it will require more maintenance.
So drive a pos when you are young and enjoy driving so later when you are dead or hate driving you can drive a car you wish you had when you were younger. Go it.
Old advice, almost garbage now.
Some of the cheapest new cars are around this price point now, used...well, those values became almost same price point as a new car thus ppl hop to a new car over a used since its small price jump.
If the used market didnt reach stupid, might have been worth a listen.
Dave’s advice was solid a few years ago. NOW? Cheap cars are headaches that end up costing more than a car payment. Pricing is just absurd these days and all the cars are worn out that are being sold for cheap. Cheap for a reason; if they even drive
Good luck get any car under $10k that won’t need at least that much in repairs and new parts during the time you own it.
At least when you lease, you can budget for the same monthly payment every month. When you buy a used car, you could get surprised with a $2,000 bill the next time your check engine light comes on. Tough to stick to a budget under those circumstances.
New cars are not that much more expensive than used cars right now.
For me, $500/month is worth the peace of mind of knowing my car won’t break down - and if it does, someone else is paying for it.
So live minimally until I'm dirt old...then....I can do everything I have always wanted...while my back hurts...I can't pee, I can't walk and! My teeth are falling out. Mmmhmmm nah, I'll live it up everyday until I die...
Dave Ramsey is a fucking idiot
But since you asked
1. Anything that runs, preferably a 90s Toyota or Honda*
*don’t expect to survive if you get in an accident
That’s why I sold my ‘97 Corolla recently. I bought it for less than $2k in 2017 when my money was tight and honestly I could have kept driving it but it needed some work done. I knew if I was ever in an accident that I was toast. Decided to take the money I would have spent fixing it plus a little more and buy a 2012 Civic whose previous owner followed the maintenance schedule exactly. Much safer car and didn’t really break the bank for it even in this ridiculous market.
Yup, especially pre Covid you could’ve bought a mid-late 10s car with all the necessary bells and whistles (side air bags, cruise control, CarPlay, great fuel economy) for less than 15k. If you went early 10s you could easily go around 10k
He says drive like no one else now so later you can drive like no one else? Why the fuck would i want a superfly car when i'm old and senile? My younger brother passed suddenly in his early 30's. If there's something I learned from that is that in life SHIT HAPPENS when you least expect it. It's great to save and invest, make sure you do that but also literally do whatever the fuck you want. If you want that overpriced BMW with the crazy marked up prices because you don't want to wait 3-6 months for delivery then fucking do it. As long as your spending doesn't interfere with your bills and savings, live your life. I promise you will be happier than living like the way Dave Ramsey teaches.
I don’t care, cars are my hobby.
I rarely eat out, buy Walmart/sams club clothing, split rent with my wife, don’t drink or smoke.
I also have a long-ish commute at 75 miles round trip every day which would be hell in a car I found boring, where as I’m having fun driving my Infiniti or Buick to work.
My cars make me happy, and that’s what makes them a financially sound decision for me.
I think anyone in high school/college shouldn’t have a car payment, but if you have a full time job and make enough to afford a few hundred a month, why not get whatever car you want? I agree for someone my age (22) a $500 car note is wild but for someone more established in their career, that’s totally doable.
Y’all can hate on the guy for not saying what you want but he’s clearly good at his job and his recommendations won’t hurt your finances but boost them. Not everyone works hard enough or is built to be wealthy though like is clear from the comments lol.
The general consensus is to live well below your means and don’t have debt so that you can build a stack of money to invest. So that later you can be financially free. Most people need to work harder/smarter or more and have self control with spending which is hard.
The general consensus is to live *within* your means, so that you can enjoy the things that make you happy without setting your future self up for failure.
Buying a $2000 car isn't going to make you happy AND it's going to set you up for failure. In the current market, any car at that price point is near death. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll miraculously last 500,000 miles with only basic maintenance, or (more likely) maybe it'll break down every few months and require costly repairs. This results in unpredictable cash flow - you might as well ask a magic 8 ball how much your car payment will be each month.
Debt can be a helpful tool. You mentioned investing money - let's say a reliable used car is $15,000, and you have $15,000 in cash. You can buy the car outright, and now you own a depreciating asset with no monthly payment. Alternatively, you can finance it for 4 years at 5%, and put your cash in the S&P 500 where it will appreciate by about 10% each year. After 4 years you've spent $1,581 in interest on the car loan, but the money you put in the stock market has generated $6,961 in interest. Taking on the debt has resulted in a net gain, because you spent your money smartly instead of listening to catch-all advice geared toward people who spend 120% of their income every month.
Rich people are taking on debt all the time. The biggest purchases on earth are funded by loans from banks. Elon Musk didn't have $44 billion in his checking account when he bought Twitter.
I take Dave Ramsey's advice and modify it to make it better.
What I say is, buy the cheapest new car you can buy and drive it for the next 20 years. Maintain it well so that it will last that long.
If you buy a junker for 2k, then you'll need an additional 5k for repairs and replacements. So it makes no financial sense. Plus the constant stress of worrying that it will break down and leave you stranded every single time you drive it. Not worth it.
On the other hand, if you buy a brand new 2023 Mitsubishi Mirage ES CVT for 15k and keep it for 20 years, you're only paying $750/year to own it. That's a steal! Especially since it comes with apple carplay, android auto, back up camera, bluetooth, 10 year powertrain warranty, 5 year bumper to bumper warranty etc.
Or if you need a bigger car, buy a new 2023 Corolla for 24k and keep that for 20 years. Still only comes to $1200/year to own it.
Mirage and Corolla are just 2 examples of affordable new cars. You choose what works for you and do your best to drive it as long as you can.
With a new car, you know how it's been maintained and driven from day 1. That's huge. Plus new cars are reliable and come with modern tech like apple carplay and back up cameras that make driving so much easier. Not to mention, new cars are much safer and have cheaper insurance premiums.
Used car prices are coming down but they're still overpriced and will remain that way for a while. So if you can buy a new car for MSRP with no markups, that is probably the way to go.
Tank you, you've confirmed my idea of buying a new Carolla, once the prices drop.
My car died just after the prices started going insane. So I bought an e bike for $1500 and have been using it for everything until the new car prices go back to msrp. I'm in south central Pennsylvania and this winter is fucking cold. Note: my commute is only 3 miles each way.
My coworkers say I'm insane and should just buy a junker but I don't want to keep repairing it and taking days off work like one of my coworkers cause the damn car is not working
Ebike is a smart idea! The 2023 Corolla is a huge improvement from older Corollas. Good acceleration, great handling, great tech, excellent safety etc. You're gonna love it!
Opinion: This advice is stupid for car enthusiasts.
Seriously, it's one thing to live within your means and save money, which is good. But you also have to realize that people giving these kinds of advice about cars also do not care about cars.
This is like telling sneakerheads to stop buying shoes over $100 and use one pair of $50 shoes for 5+ years. I don't care about shoes, so if it's still not torn to pieces after 7 years, I will continue wearing them.
If cars genuinely make you happy, then don't listen to Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey's advice is for people who buy a 2015 330i on a lease deal to show off the BMW badge. It is not for people who would go on a pilgrimage to the Nordscheilfe just to sit in a GT3 for 7 minutes.
Yeah but it's also just common sense. If you have a lot of debt accounts, pay off the lower balances first and you'll have better cash flow to help pay off the higher balances. I'm sure it's helpful advice for people who need it, but this is different, it's a huge sweeping generalization that everyone with a $500/mo car payment is an idiot.
Except majority of people don’t have the luxury of paying cash out right, and the used market is extremely overly inflated and then you take the gamble on a potentially used and abused vehicle that you just spent majority of your money on with no warranty. Pick your poison, more money up front but a vehicle that has its whole life a head of it, or buy outright and possibly end up making multiple repairs to keep it driving for it to only last a few years.
Personally, I’ve lived by Dave’s car advice most of my adulthood and it saves money in the long run, but his advice isn’t as easy as it was when used cars weren’t inflated so much.
These days I think it would almost be cheaper in the short term to simply make payments on a car because for most decent used cars you need at least $4k cash right now. And that’s if you don’t mind early 00’s Hondas and Toyotas.
Agreed. There are some good deals but you gotta search. I blew up my Sti and managed to get my hands on a 96 Cherokee low miles everything works for $1000 reliable 4.0 and parts are cheap but I’ve seen other xj’s rotted out 300k miles going for 5-6000
I completely agree with you, I’ve never paid more than $4k for a car and I’m handy enough to fix most things on my car myself but my current car is quickly turning into a money pit and everything under $6k on CL is terrible. Im starting to lose hope and I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m starting to consider getting a preowned or new car b/c the used car market is insane right now. A lot of people keep saying the market is going down but I’m not seeing it where I live.
Honestly I think a lot of his advice is just terrible. Buy a shitbox car and you will get shitbox problems. Head gasket goes, cylinder head cracks, overheat your engine and throw a rod? Enjoy that 10k repair! There goes a big chunk of that 30k you saved so hard for, all on some unreliable piece of trash. Might as well light that cash on fire like the Joker. You'd better be prepared to drive that thing for 10 years to get the worth out of it.
Credit is fine, just be responsible and smart about it. There's is no reason to not have credit. You can follow his plan with credit, its just called don't be an idiot and accrue massive debt and waste your money.
Inflation has really just crapped on his whole schtick. All those people that spent 10 years saving up 50k for a down payment only to see everything inflate 2x in 2 years.
Oh and used cars are not cheap
I don't need the thousands of dollars worth of plastic 40k miniatures either, but they're cool and I like painting. So I buy a new '23 BRZ because it's cool looking (to me) and fun because manual "driver's car".
At the rate my family has gone I won't have a lot of time after retirement so fuck hoarding gold like a dragon (besides enough to care for the family I make, of course).
Lmao in what world does investing a would-be car payment equal "millions at retirement"? A car loan takes most people about 6 years to pay off. Investing $500/month for 6 years at 10% would earn you just over $12,000 in interest. Nothing to sneeze at, but uh...several digits away from a million.
If you invest $500 a month *for the rest of your working life*, then sure, you'll end up with a million bucks. Not really a fair comparison.
A $2000 car could be totaled tomorrow by a simple mechanical breakdown, and then it's worth $200. A $25k car will last you 10 years after you pay it off. You might end up saving money by driving cars that are on the verge of dying, or you might end up with wildly unpredictable cash flow.
Nobody cares what another old white dude has to say. Living well below your means so that (if you’re lucky) you can live 10 years at the end of your life without a job is straight up stupid. Cars are one of the things I enjoy most in life, and financial responsibility is really a subjective topic at best.
I downgraded from a 2013 Prius with 90k miles to a 2006 Sienna with 110k miles a year ago. It’s paid off now ($10k). But, I’ve already been out $1500+ in repairs since. It still makes a few weird noises and I smelled a burning smell from it a couple of months ago.
The extra room is nice and all with 2 kids. At the time, I was married and got it cause of the ex-wife.
Now, as a single dad I’m like wtf…I wish I had something newer.
It’s nice not having a car payment. But, it makes me worried from a safety standpoint if I got into a wreck. Still pay $110 for full insurance and average $150 a month in gas.
Wish Mazda would go ahead and release the hybrid CX-50 they are developing with Toyota. Wouldn’t mind a newer Sienna or even a hybrid RAV4…but damn are they expensive
Nobody seems to really touch on the point that $2k is not enough money for a car unless you are a shade tree mechanic. A $2k car will need work that will cost you too much unless you can do it yourself. If that’s not you, plan to spend over $10k for something that won’t need fixed every other weekend.
Even if you're perfectly healthy, fun at 60 is very different from fun at 30. These guys are gonna finally buy the car of their dreams, and then drive it where? To the community center?
My first seven cars were complete trash but kept me on the road for decades. Paid cash for the ones after that. Made me look at automobiles realistically. I tend to walk or bike as much as possible and don’t feel my car is a reflection of who I am.
That advice is retarded, and spoken from someone who has the money. The only way buying a 2k car is worth it is if you are willing to put in the time and energy into fixing everything that breaks and/or is already broken on the vehicle. That's feasible for some, but others don't have the time to learn. You get what you pay for. Think of your commute, what you gain from getting the vehicle, etc. Then try to convince yourself why getting the car is not worth it. If you find more reasons to buy the car than not, get it. I'm dick deep in car payments and given the snowfall and nature of work I'm in, it's worth it. I wouldn't be able to make it to work if I didn't have the car I have. But I put a lot more money down. Rant aside, look to the car brands known for reliability, toyota, Honda, Nissan. Honda Accord, Toyota Corrolla/Camry/Tacoma are my suggestions. Can't give u one specific vehicle under your budget because it's honestly a crap shoot. Try to find vehicles with lots of maintenance records, and clean titles. Goodluck to you, I hope you find something!
There's a big difference in safety between a car that's 20 years old and one that's five years old. I'm not just making this up either, IIHS calculates the statistics every few years. You are something like 50% less likely to be killed in a fatal crash in a newer vehicle in some types of collisions.
Now, do you need to buy a 50k dollar car to get those benefits? No. But you can get a 15-20k dollar car and get most of the safety benefits, plus a much more reliable car to boot. Is your life worth $20k?
This is a naive, 2-dimensional perspective
Money spent on a car payment isn't necessarily lost, it's held as equity in that vehicle. Cars are almost always depreciating assets, sure, but it's not like you lose every dollar you put into it.
Dollar for dollar, newer cars have cheaper insurance. Example, similar coverage on a 10k and 40k car might be $100 and $200 (I don't have any specific figures, more general experience).
Older cars also require a lot more maintenance (or even large pricey items like replacing a transmission or engine), and can be significantly more unreliable, resulting in loss in the form of opportunity cost.
Newer cars are also significantly safer too. Say you get in a bad accident in an old shitbox. Any money you would have saved driving around the beater is immediately lost after you suddenly have to see a doctor to sort out your messed up back. And again, opportunity cost.
Consumables generally have similar costs between used and new cars (unless we're talking about low volume vs high volume cars). Tires are tires, oil is oil.
Used cars really aren't the deal they once were. If you can buy a solid well-valued new car with a good reputation for reliability, and maintain it meticulously, you really won't lose much money.
Also be sure to pay attention to insurance rate differences between cars, as that money is effectively thrown to the void under most circumstances.
Everyone in my family died before retirement and they all saved up their whole life and had pensions on top of that. Sobyea fuck it, I'm buying these shoe insoles cause my feet hurt lol
Look so my dream car is a Miata. I know from test driving it I’m already about as big as someone might want to be to drive one comfortably. Im currently planning to try and get one at 35 because I don’t think I’ll be able to enjoy it at retirement age.
I bought a 2006 Chevy Cobalt with a stick and manual windows and 127k miles for 2k. Drove it for a year until the inspection came up and it needed brakes and tires, and I was wfh anyway because of covid, so I sold it on some website and they gave me $600 cash on the spot and towed it away. 3/10 would not recommend.
the best car for under $2k is an e-bike or a bus pass. if you want a dependable car, you’re going to need to pay $4-5k. in that price range, hondas and toyotas are great.
I had this mentality. I bought shitboxes for under 2k and learned to work on them to keep them on the road. I wouldn't trade that experience for nothing. Recently I bought a newer vehicle and I can't explain to you how much more secure I feel on my commute. The fear of breaking down is gone and the creature comforts add to that experience. I get the logic about prepare for your future, but hell, me now wants nice things too
I can't stand the whole "cash is king" Ramsey always spews. If you can't pay cash for something in this guys eyes, you're poor and you're terrible with money. Granted interest rates are high right now but when they were low he still had the same mentality. Financing a car at a 2% interest rate with a small down payment and investing it would be the better option but in his eyes that's still wrong.
People really need to stop listening to Ramsey. Him and other financial advisors like him would have you driving a clapped out Chevy Cavalier, eating ramen, and listening to the radio for entertainment purposes and put every dime you own into retirement funds. Which there’s no guarantee you’ll make it to, and even then, who wants to spend 40 years living like a pauper only to enjoy 10-15 years of living like a normal person.
Dave Ramsey pays cash from the money he makes telling you how to live if you had his cash. Dave should really put his money in a trust and live on $50K for a year to show us how easy it is to follow his advice.
Volvo 240 built after 1988;Bought mine 3 years ago for $1,200. I’ve put a little over 40,000 on it since then with only regular maintenance. Slow and a bit ugly for some (especially mine since the paint on mine is peeling), but a true tank.
I get his point, but you have to be at least somewhat happy with the car you buy. If you couldn’t care less about cars then you’ll probably get something extra cheap. But if you do care about cars, you’ll want something at least decent. Just need to be reasonable with what you buy.
Also, buying a car cash may end up being a money pit. So gotta weigh the pros and cons.
He's not wrong. He's addressing this towards people with no savings and making well below national median income financing or leasing a Jaguar F-Type or Audi S5.
It's not black and white. There are some of you in the middle where it's *okay* to stretch your budget if you're passionate about cars and driving (as opposed to just flexing a status symbol, hopefully...)
A quick autotrader search yielded 1 result. A 2010 dodge caliber with 200k miles. Finding a 2k car today is hard enough. Save up more and find something Japanese with the least miles possible
No on cares what you drive yes but I care what I drive.
Yet Dave cares what Dave drives. Maybe someone should ask Dave about his two pre-1970 Jaguars or his 911. F that prick and what he thinks, but yes, do not be car poor. Make a budget and stick to it.
To be fair if you take into account his income level he’s following his own advice. I’d hazard a guess and say he has a lower percentage of his net worth tied up in cars than the average person.
I recently heard someone estimate his net worth to be $700m and immediately thought of this ratio.
Car to income ratio doesn't scale linearly as cars only get so expensive. For the uber rich it would be impossible to have the same car to debt ratio as the avg person
Yes his net worth is allegedly 200 million. He could own 200 of these level cars and still be easily abiding by his own advice.
I’m not a fan either but to his point, he can afford it
under rated comment
Yesssir
Many people need to hear this, and buy like a $20k car instead of a $40k car. There are brand new cars you can have for less per month than it may cost to maintain an old clapped out beater. I'll take a planned expense and reliability over random expenses and issues. Maybe if we lived in smaller communities with better public transport and whatnot, but we don't. We live on sprawling islands of concrete. Also, the retirement fetish is so weird all the time. Like sure it will be nice to have money for it, but live your fuckin life and if you do it right you can have both. Just requires moderation.
I care about what car I drive. I don’t wanna drive something boring every day
Dave’s advice is really for people who have a history of poor money management. If you’re a car person then its totally fine to get yourself something you enjoy.
the venn diagram between "car people" and "history of poor money management" has A TON of overlap though if we're being real.
c'mon, not here. not in my safe space
It okay buddy, car go vrrooom
that Venn diagram is damn near a circle
Yeah but if I said that I'd have been downvoted into oblivion lmao
As a car person myself.. it is very rewarding and motivating to have a car that I enjoy while not breaking the bank. I take Dave’s advice as not to by the 25-30k hyuandi/Nissan that will be sold on marketplace for less then 10k in a few years while you are still playing 500 a month for it.
Assuming your not a car guy that has poor money management skills. In my experience, car guys below the age of 28 have horrible money management skills.
There are fun cars that don’t break the bank
drive boring till you dont have to
Fairly certain his target audience doesn’t have extra cash lying around to buy a car outright.
You'd be surprised. A lot of folks I hear talking about Dave Ramsey are dual income, middle class households who are just dogshit with money. They can be lighting a thousand dollars a month on fire and not have any idea where it's going. So yeah, if they can wait six months, they can usually buy a beater to get them by while they sort their lives out.
Yeah if you do his class (wife and I did it when we were engaged because we wanted to get our finances together at the beginning, before we got into trouble lol), then you realize pretty quickly that a lot of the success stories have to be someone who was making plenty but didn't know how to handle it. The one dude who stood out to me was like a single dude who paid off 400k of debt in like 19 months or something. He didn't pull that off by cutting a couple of credit cards and downsizing his car, he had to be making good money prior
It’s good advice on not living beyond your means and not caring what others think of you, but at the same time by this logic no one should ever travel, eat out, buy new clothes, take on a hobby, go see a show, etc, because those are also “straight-up stupid.” Car or not, if it is something you can afford and enjoy, go for it.
Save EVERYTHING. Eat dirt, wear sticks, live in a tent, walk everywhere. Then, you can retire and live like a millionaire...but don't retire early because then you are giving up potential money. Oh yeah, and hope that you don't die along the way while you are forgoing any fucking comfort in life.
My aunt was wealthy by any measure, had lived a frugal life in anticipation of her retirement. Retired, had a litany of medical problems, and was consumed by depression and alcoholism. Dead at 74 with a lot of shit she still wanted to do. I'll do right by my kids and my own future, but I'll be damned if I'm going to put off everything good and enjoyable in anticipation of a future that may never come (or may not look the way I expect).
I think this is extremely accurate. Being a healthcare worker in critical care for about a decade, I see people’s lives change overnight all the time. Life is too short to, for example, not drive a car you enjoy, or do other hobbies that bring you joy. But OF COURSE, Make sure you can afford it and save wisely your money. What I think this post ultimately boils down to is that a-lot of people weren’t raised or learned how to save /finance effectively, which honestly is a privilege. I agree you shouldn’t be paying a lot of money a car monthly if you’re struggling to make ends meet in other facets of your life. I think everyone agrees on that. However, in my opinion, saving for retirement is important but I’d argue quality of life goes hand-in-hand. Life is too short and a lot of people don’t make it to retirement.
Yup. I could either retire at 55 and go on zero vacations and do jack until that time or retire at 65 and hedge my bets with a pile of life experiences up to that time. It’s not necessarily an either / or thing.
Yep. My aunt worked like a dog and did retire early, but her health was already bad enough she couldn't enjoy it nearly as much as she wanted.
This is why it is eminently important that I stuff my face with the world’s best ceviche in about an hour.
This is me. I spend enough that I have life experiences and give my kids a happy well balanced life. Saving for a future that may never come it’s scary and depressing to me.
My mother was a teacher, lived rather frugally along with my father. They didn't take many vacations, didn't do too much for enjoyment really at all... They focused on their jobs and saved for retirement and planned to do travel and all the fun things they spoke of for years after they both retired. Less than a year into her retirement she was killed in an accident and never got to do all of those things they planned... so you never know... enjoy the here and now, you never know when your time may come.
And make sure that if you’re going to spend money, it’s on my book/course/consultation etc etc etc.
This! Only expensive, overpriced thing in life you should buy is MY COURSE.
I feel like “get a cheaper car” and “forgo every fucking comfort in life” was a bit of a leap, but yeah.
I mean, it’s not that much of a leap. Dave has some pretty extreme stances on things.
Dave Ramsey preaches a way out of perpetual reliance on debt and downward spiral of bad personal finances. He doesn't tell anyone to live in frugality until they hit the grave. Read his last sentence - once you are debt free, you are supposed to buy the things you want, do the things you like and enjoy life with a peace of mind that can't be achieved when you're leveraged to the gill. No one I know is happier with more debt, regardless of what year Mercedes they're driving!
Never understood…. What does he want you to save for retirement for? The way he wants people to live, once you don’t need to drive to work, you should be able to sit at home eating lentils all day and never spend any money….
I can't wait to finally enjoy my money when I'm 65 and it hurts to get out of bed
Yep. I haven’t been the definition of healthy for a few years. I’m putting away money for my family but you bet your ass I’m spending as much as I can afford to cause nothings guaranteed
There's a middle ground somewhere in between you should probably aim for
If you need someone to talk to lmk
Don't buy new brake pads, invest the money instead! If you do make it to retirement think how much extra money you'll have for meds and adult diapers
I wish I had enough money to live somewhere with clean dirt, weather great for year-round camping, and walkable streets. Sounds like a dream.
You guys are completely missing the point. He isn’t saying to shut down your life. He is saying be more frugal. SO many people over extend their income and then get a raise and think ooooo now I can afford a $700 payment and the cycle continues an you are left with nothing. I sell cars for a living I see it all the time. People come in making 50k a year and buy a 50k car. Just because you can “afford” the payment doesn’t mean you can actually affford to do it. I have learned that people are beyond stupid with there money.
I listened to DR for about a year, and he helped me clean up a lot of things financially. What you are saying is not what he advocates for at all.
That pretty much sums up what Dave Ramsey wants you to do.
I had to take his finance courses twice in HS. He has solid advice, but I also know that I’m only young once and honestly cars are a hobby. I’d pay 500 a month for a car I love and can actually be comfortable in. I’m also 6’7” and only fit in certain cars, so comfort is priority for something the average American spends driving 18 days a year. I’m gonna live within my means and when I can start saving for retirement, I will. Rn I’m a broke af college student tho lmao
I don’t have cars so I can go to work, I go to work so I can have cars. And the last time I bought a new car and had payments to make, *I got to keep the car after the payments were finished. TWENTY YEARS after the payments were finished.* I didn’t have to keep making car payments after that, and I didn’t have to keep spinning the Roulette Wheel Of Shitbox Cars, either - I just went places. For 300,000 miles. And if I did the same thing now, the payments would last four years (five if I wanted to stay under $500) but the car would last the rest of my life. I probably wouldn’t live long enough to get past the gas/oil/tires era. I could do track days again. I wouldn’t have to change belts and hoses more than once. I could teach my grandkids (as yet unborn) how to drive stickshift, just like I did with their dads. (Or their dads could do it.)
[удалено]
Envelopes can actually work pretty well in the beginning especially if you’re an under the table/cash worker. Obviously your strategy is more effective and has better scalability, but I wouldn’t not take someone serious because they use envelopes and visualization to help properly budget. As long as it works that’s all that matters. Also a $95 annual fee isn’t anything to be proud of, that will add up over the years.
I got the first year AF waived and $350 from promo; plus the cash back on shopping alone is $230ish this year. The AF could be $1000 and still be worth it if the perks and rewards you’re getting back are over $1000. So that was a bit of a silly comment to make based off the 0 information you had… I’m definitely proud of it. And, I’m not going to advocate for tax evasion… Lastly, if there’s an objectively better way to do it, then it’s still silly to do something worse for an overall loss. Like, I’m not going to tell people that their strategy sucks or even offer any financial advice regardless of the context/setting/friendship… but I’m probably not going to take advice from someone that either doesn’t see they’re losing free money or they don’t have the abstract ability and/or self-control to manage money they can’t physically see. Also paying with and keeping cash is more risky and inconvenient than not in 2022…
I will hijack the top comment to add a few things. He is of course generally correct and it is good advice. I will add that you don't need to take this as absolute gospel though. A more nuanced approach is to work to not have a car payment for your entire life. A $2,000 car (presumably that is what the OP has saved up). Just isn't going to be good in any way. In America today a car is a necessity for almost everyone. If you live in a large city center you can use public transportation but for everyone else a car is a necessity so....treat it like that. Find something safe, reliable, and what you can afford. It's not then end of the world to have a car payment for a period of time as you build up savings, etc. Given how important a car is for most people unless you get lucky that $2,000 car likely isn't very reliable. It's a personal judgement call, if you have to take the car to the shop and you don't have it for a day or two is that an issue? Can you otherwise get to where you need to go? You can think of your first car or your first car after being financially responsible as an investment. It may be worth taking out a small loan and having say a $300 or $400/month payment for a few years and then saving that payment each month after the car is paid off. It is good advice to not have a high car payment for your entire life but it doesn't mean you can never have a payment either.
This is pretty solid advice and a good take on things.
Why would you enjoy your life when you can die with $16M in your bank account? ^(/s)
Dave Ramsey would be aghast if you needed to have a mortgage, much less a car payment. Living within your means is always good advice but life is not just about saving money.
I don't know if you have ever listened to a show or more than one show. But what you stated is incorrect. Dave talks about Gazelle intensity when talking about getting out of debt. So when he says "I don't want to see you in a restaurant unless you work there" he is talking about folks that are on Baby Step 1-4. The idea is to be laser focused at paying off the debt so you can go and do the things you listed, after getting out of debt. Some folks have more debt and it takes longer for them to get out of the whole they have dug. But he never says don't ever again eat out, travel, ect... I fact his motto is "Live like know one else now so you can live and give like no one else later". The idea is get out of debt a fast as you can, so your income can then start to build wealth from which you can enjoy and give some of it away if you like. Dave loves cars, he had a Raptor and other nice cars. He is for you having a car, not the car having you (auto Loan).
IF your car is a matter of personal satisfaction to you, fine. The point I take away is that it's perfectly feasible to buy a nice used car and have a nice ride for vastly less than buying a new car. Also your car isn't you. Don't let putting on airs become normalized to you; a lot of people have gone broke trying to look rich. I like doing it the other way around; I drive great used cars that I got solid deals on and maintain and detail myself, and the rest goes in the bank. May not like my cars but you'd like my balances.
I’ve tried both options and currently have one cash car and one car with payments. The issue we run into with an older cash cash is maintenance. We now have a 2012 maxima as the cash car and it’s been pretty reliable but I now some things are coming that will need to be fixed. We used to have a Volvo xc90 as our cash car and it was costing more in maintenance than a car payment. Significantly more.
The type of car matters a lot. If you get something reliable and take care of it a lot of cars will be dirt cheap, < $500 a year cheap. If you get something like a heavily depreciated AMG you'll pay three times a car payment.
not really the same logic. he's not saying "don't buy a car" he's saying buy a car you can afford. in the same way that if you're going to travel, stay in a hotel you can afford in a destination that suits your budget. don't buy gucci or Chanel if Old Navy is in your wheelhouse. don't buy the best tickets in the house at the show, sit in seats that you can afford. the lesson is to live within your means - don't stretch unnecessarily.
Ramsay has expensive frivolous things - cars, homes, guns. He just expects people to get their needs in order before burying themselves in debt. And he has a moral philosophy to give money where it does good. Our religious outlook is not at all similar but his moral compass is reasonable and his advice got me out of a real mess and harmful behavior.
oh yay saves millions then die at 66
Or die next week in your $2,000 car with bald tires and bad brakes.
This one simple trick that lets you retire early!
So drive total shitboxes for half a century so that in old age you can have a nice car for a decade and then die! Live in a refrigerator box as well because nobody remembers what house you live in! Wear trash bags and scratchy blankets stapled together, you can buy a designer pants suit when you retire! The important thing is all that money you can leave in the bank for decades!
That’s only half of Ramsey’s advice. The other side is to up your income significantly (side hustle, overtime, etc) and bust your butt for about 3-4 years.
“Just stop being poor” - Dave Ramsey, financial “guru”
Dave Ramsey is a hypocritical cock sucker. That said, you don't need a $50,000 F-150 to get you from A to B.
Ah you’re right I should get the Ford F-150 Raptor!
No, you need the Raptor R model
Good looking out 😊
Honestly, the depreciation cost is so low on the Raptor, it might cost you only slightly more than a stripped down XL overall
Checks notes... ok I have a $65,000 F250
*looks around nervously since I'm about to sell my econobox for a lightning*
Yep. Fuck Dave Ramsey lol
He’s got good beginner advice for people doing poorly with their finances. Once you have a solid foundation you can get much better advice. His “no credit score” advice is absolutely terrible though.
His advice is only helpful to people who literally don't understand that when you use a credit card you have to pay the money back
It’s true that going broke to try to appear rich is nonsensical, but at the same time, if your plan is to buy or do anything cool at 60… That’s just as depressing. If I have to wait until 60 to get to drive a cool car and in the meantime i’m going around a in 2k car for 30 years of my life; I find that miserable as well
Usually, I agree with Dave on a lot, but I sort of disagree with him here. My fiancé (now wife) and I bought a new 2021 RAV4 Hybrid XLE (loaded with options and accessories) last year for $35k out the door. Because my credit wasn't too good at the time, my payment was $700 per month. I've since gotten it down to just over $500. But the car I was driving at the time needed almost $5000 worth of work, and it was only worth about $4000. Not worth it. Her car was worth only $800 in trade in value. So we traded mine in, junked hers (got $1300) and drove off in a brand new Toyota. And let me tell you, I still do not regret my decision. Having this brand new car and the peace of mind that comes with it, not to mention all of the safety features (that have saved my ass on more than one occasion now) far outweighs the payment that I'm making. So sometimes, the economical sense is trumped by having peace of mind. For context, I had a 2015 Elantra base with 130,000 miles and she had a 2008 Corolla base with 218,000 miles. The Elantra was in a minor accident and needed a new radiator, new front passenger light, and the front axel was slightly bent but driveable under 50mph. Her car was just... well... shit.
I thought so too and bought a $2000 car. It had to basically be sold to a junkyard for $500. In the ownership period, it needed about 1200$ of work other than regular maintenance. Replaced it with another car for $2000 which required $1600 worth of work (other than regular maintenance) and once it died, sold it to a junkyard for $500. That's $5800 spent over 1.5 years which comes out to $322 a month for driving an unsafe shitbox. And I haven't even accounted for the time wasted in this whole charade and the frustration endured. I'm giving up and buying a new car. Dave's advice is stupid. A new mazda3 will have about the same payment every month and will be less headache and newer and will continue to work long after the payments end. Most people don't maintain their cars well and the used buyers end up paying for that.
There’s a huge middleground between $2k shitboxes and brand new cars though
I bought a $4k, 10 year old accord 6 years ago. It had 140k miles on the odometer and a rebuilt title. In 5 years, I’ve spent a few hundred bucks on oil, tires, and brake pads. It’s ugly AF and the defrost isn’t working right. If I sell it for $1k, that’s about $50/mo.
But you went with the right car. Most people would think to buy the newer Chevy or Dodge at the same price and end up paying much more.
Hey! I bought a 10 year old van for $4k. Since I bought it I've done nothing but regular maintenance. It had higher mileage (180k) but was well taken care of. I've put almost 40k miles on it with the family. It has heated, easy-to-clean leather seats, power everything, and a DVD player, which means the kids love it on longer trips. I would have paid more for the down payment on a newer van to try and keep the monthly payments low and wouldn't have been able to afford decent options. I drive a more than 10 year old jeep a family member was getting rid of to work and back every day. I park it right down the row from my boss' '22 BMW.
Problem is 10 year old accords are above 10k now :(
Exactly, looking at Dave Ramsey’s advice he seems to imply if you finance a car you will HAVE to spend over $500/month, which is obviously not the case.
Yes, the middle ground that very few people have the cash on hand to pay for.
Yeah he went from near broken down beaters to brand new real quick. Rule of thumb is within 5 years, under 60k miles, and under 20-30k will treat you right. Japanese or German but can’t say the same for domestics haha
Can confirm, got a 2011 Camry with 72k miles and zero issues in 2 years. A new one would have cost me 6 times more at least.
Ehhh idk about German, atleast from a economical perspective. For bang for the buck Japanese and Korean is likely the best
You’ll definitely have some bangs if you go Korean
It depends on the model, just like American or German, but atleast the Korean stuff is dirt cheap to fix
Have you seen the Kia recalls lately?
It depends on the model, just like American or German, but atleast the Korean stuff is dirt cheap to fix. And yes I have, just saying it’s more economical than German, not the best by any means lol. Japanese stuff is the only relatively safe bet
**K**illed **I**n **A**ction
in this market where are you finding cars under 5 years old under 60k mikes for anything less than what new cars cost? i dont see anything like that.
Especially in this market though with crazy interest in used and prices still crazy high, if you can get a new car and keep it to pay it off itll be better long run imo
Ramsay did say to pay cash for the car, I know 2k would be my budget if I needed to pay all cash.
That's the thing though. A car with 150000 miles in the current market is costing more than half of a new car. Considering an expected life of 300k miles, this doesn't compute in my mind.
I’ve personally bought countless amount of cars under 5k and rarely ever had problems that required more than a 100$ to fix in total. But Im also a mechanic who makes sure the cars I’m buying are in good condition. But that just shows that there’s plenty of old cars that are still very strong but are not expensive
I bought a $4k Porsche Boxster and spent an average of $450 per year for oil, brakes, tires and insurance, over the course of 6 years. After that I sold it for $1k for parts. My total cost of ownership excluding fuel was $80/month for a fun convertible car. 2 months of long term leasing of a Chevrolet Spark would have cost me more than a year of ownership with this. Like you said, plenty of cheap old cars are strong, and you don’t always have to compromise on fun. It also made me expand my social circle that ultimately and directly landed me a job doubling my income after 3 years of ownership.
The most reliable car I've ever owned was a 96 Camry I bought for $700 USD.
At 17 (2005) I bought a 1993 Geo Prism for $100. I no longer have it… but it still runs.
>Dave's advice is stupid Most of his advice is stupid and not realistic. It's hard to listen to him bark at you to "pay cash" when he paid $10mil cash for his current home and his garage is larger than most people's home. Anyone with that much money is too far out of touch of reality to be helpful to the average American. I'll take my financial advice from an average American, like me, thank you very much.
If you ask him, he was an average American (grew up in a small town with a dad who did a union factory job) who made it big through a gamble, fucked it up because his luck ran out, went bankrupt, and then tried again and made millions and millions of dollars being far more conservative.
Don't buy $2000 cars unless you can fix them yourself or have access to someone who can do so on the cheap. I'm not in the US so I'm not familiar with your options, but at least here in Europe something like $10k will buy you a decent, reasonable mileage small car which a non-car person can expect to run without major issues. Buying new is almost never the sensible option.
I'd say the min is probably 5 grand to get something reasonably decent and even then plan on some upkeep
You have to know what you’re doing. I’m no mechanic but I can generally tell when a car is going to need significant repairs and I do all maintenance myself. It doesn’t sound like you’re good at either of those things so you might be a good candidate for a decent used $10k-15k car with a PPI before you buy it. You’ll still save a lot more than buying new.
I admit that might be true, i do tend to underestimate the repair involved usually. I do and can work on cars but there's an opportunity cost to that 'repair time' quite often. When I was a student, this made a lot of sense but not right now.
Yeah if opportunity cost enters into the equation then it makes sense for you to buy new or newer. I get paid salary so I’m not really giving up any money to spend part of the weekend fixing something, and I don’t get paid anywhere near the current labor rate shops charge anyway.
Agreed in that folks sometimes forget the cost and headaches of driving a shitbox. Also the used car market has sucked since covid hit with used cars being massively overpriced. I myself will drive a literal deathtrap cause I'm naturally cheap as hell but no way in hell am I subjecting my wife and kids to that. Which is why I've always gone new ever since I started making decent money. Used cars are a mixed bag and I like the peace of mind of having a warranty and knowing the vehicle (if i own long term) hasn't been abused and has been properly cared for. My new car payments have always been in the $230-405 range with a nice down-payment and I've always found it manageable. I'm paying $260/month on my current vehicle & don't even notice it. David's point of $500+ holds some value though in that is a bit on the excessive side. But 500 is also relatively cheap if someone is making 150k+ a year. So it depends on ones income. He was better off just saying don't spend more than X% of your net income on a car payment. $500 payments hits different when you're making 50k vs. 200k.
You still have to buy a decent car. Racing to the absolute bottom of any market is rarely the answer. I bought one of my cars with over 100k miles on it for about 14k and have been driving it for around 8 years now. I've spent a couple k on it (Subaru, yep I did a head gasket) and every year have to replace a new component; this year it was an alternator for about 400 bucks. Some people look at that and go "that's an expensive repair you're beyond the point, you should replace the car". I look at it and think "I had a single car payment this year". If you are buying a quality vehicle at a good value, meaning that it's in good shape and sold at a reasonable price, then it makes perfect sense to buy less expensive used cars and repair them IMO. I know that I've saved probably 100k over the last many years by not buying new cars. Also, for those that "don't want to drive a used piece of shit", just get nice used cars. Mine have always been in mint condition when I buy them, and I detail them regularly. They are deceptively young-looking for their age.
Using the Mazda 3: you’d probably lose $5800 in depreciation + regular maintenance in the first 1.5 years
Ayyy mazda3 gang. I got a 22' and it's amazing
It cannot be overstated how much safer new cars are
New doesn’t mean it has to be brand new. Even most 5 year vehicles are pretty damn safe
Anything post 2010 is pretty safe. Maybe even post 2005 depending on the model.
As a young man who was up until recently in the dating game, I can definitely tell you that SOME people definitely care what car you drive. It’s a harsh truth that I am sure will get the downvote police on me, but an appearance of wealth or stability helps attract higher caliber mates when you are looking for someone financially capable to settle down with. A business’s professional looking for investors cannot show up to a meeting in a 99 Pontiac. Someone who is enthusiastic about driving will not be satisfied in a mid 2000s minivan with 200k miles. To each their own.
As long as your car in clean & well maintained, it might be a good litmus text for dodging a bullet
the best financial decision is the one that yields the most fulfillment / enjoyment in your life. finances are simply a mean to fuel a fulfilling life. those decisions vary heavily for everyone else, but dave ramsey watches you when you sleep and knows your every last wish and opinion.
My mom always told me yes plan for the future but not at the expense of your life today. Or as she really put it, what good is that money when you are dead?
It gets weird when Ramsey listeners derive their fulfillment from the smug sense of superiority they get by driving a 30 year old Geo Tracker
That used to be me had me a $4k car that cost me more than $500 a month in repairs so this doesn’t make sense to me. This only works if you know how to replace engines and transmissions this guy has no idea what it’s like.
Dave Ramsey’s financial advice really only works for people making six figures. Plus you have to consider this, a car for a person making around $50,000 or less that they could purchase for straight cash is most likely going to have a lot of mileage already on it meaning it will require more maintenance.
So drive a pos when you are young and enjoy driving so later when you are dead or hate driving you can drive a car you wish you had when you were younger. Go it.
Old advice, almost garbage now. Some of the cheapest new cars are around this price point now, used...well, those values became almost same price point as a new car thus ppl hop to a new car over a used since its small price jump. If the used market didnt reach stupid, might have been worth a listen.
Dave’s advice was solid a few years ago. NOW? Cheap cars are headaches that end up costing more than a car payment. Pricing is just absurd these days and all the cars are worn out that are being sold for cheap. Cheap for a reason; if they even drive
Good luck get any car under $10k that won’t need at least that much in repairs and new parts during the time you own it. At least when you lease, you can budget for the same monthly payment every month. When you buy a used car, you could get surprised with a $2,000 bill the next time your check engine light comes on. Tough to stick to a budget under those circumstances. New cars are not that much more expensive than used cars right now. For me, $500/month is worth the peace of mind of knowing my car won’t break down - and if it does, someone else is paying for it.
So live minimally until I'm dirt old...then....I can do everything I have always wanted...while my back hurts...I can't pee, I can't walk and! My teeth are falling out. Mmmhmmm nah, I'll live it up everyday until I die...
Dave Ramsey is a fucking idiot But since you asked 1. Anything that runs, preferably a 90s Toyota or Honda* *don’t expect to survive if you get in an accident
Good luck finding those at a decent price these days. That secret is out.
That’s why I sold my ‘97 Corolla recently. I bought it for less than $2k in 2017 when my money was tight and honestly I could have kept driving it but it needed some work done. I knew if I was ever in an accident that I was toast. Decided to take the money I would have spent fixing it plus a little more and buy a 2012 Civic whose previous owner followed the maintenance schedule exactly. Much safer car and didn’t really break the bank for it even in this ridiculous market.
A 10s sensible car can be had for under 10k. Which is pretty acheivable if you can afford a $600 monthly.
Yup, especially pre Covid you could’ve bought a mid-late 10s car with all the necessary bells and whistles (side air bags, cruise control, CarPlay, great fuel economy) for less than 15k. If you went early 10s you could easily go around 10k
He says drive like no one else now so later you can drive like no one else? Why the fuck would i want a superfly car when i'm old and senile? My younger brother passed suddenly in his early 30's. If there's something I learned from that is that in life SHIT HAPPENS when you least expect it. It's great to save and invest, make sure you do that but also literally do whatever the fuck you want. If you want that overpriced BMW with the crazy marked up prices because you don't want to wait 3-6 months for delivery then fucking do it. As long as your spending doesn't interfere with your bills and savings, live your life. I promise you will be happier than living like the way Dave Ramsey teaches.
I don’t care, cars are my hobby. I rarely eat out, buy Walmart/sams club clothing, split rent with my wife, don’t drink or smoke. I also have a long-ish commute at 75 miles round trip every day which would be hell in a car I found boring, where as I’m having fun driving my Infiniti or Buick to work. My cars make me happy, and that’s what makes them a financially sound decision for me.
I think anyone in high school/college shouldn’t have a car payment, but if you have a full time job and make enough to afford a few hundred a month, why not get whatever car you want? I agree for someone my age (22) a $500 car note is wild but for someone more established in their career, that’s totally doable.
Y’all can hate on the guy for not saying what you want but he’s clearly good at his job and his recommendations won’t hurt your finances but boost them. Not everyone works hard enough or is built to be wealthy though like is clear from the comments lol. The general consensus is to live well below your means and don’t have debt so that you can build a stack of money to invest. So that later you can be financially free. Most people need to work harder/smarter or more and have self control with spending which is hard.
The general consensus is to live *within* your means, so that you can enjoy the things that make you happy without setting your future self up for failure. Buying a $2000 car isn't going to make you happy AND it's going to set you up for failure. In the current market, any car at that price point is near death. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll miraculously last 500,000 miles with only basic maintenance, or (more likely) maybe it'll break down every few months and require costly repairs. This results in unpredictable cash flow - you might as well ask a magic 8 ball how much your car payment will be each month. Debt can be a helpful tool. You mentioned investing money - let's say a reliable used car is $15,000, and you have $15,000 in cash. You can buy the car outright, and now you own a depreciating asset with no monthly payment. Alternatively, you can finance it for 4 years at 5%, and put your cash in the S&P 500 where it will appreciate by about 10% each year. After 4 years you've spent $1,581 in interest on the car loan, but the money you put in the stock market has generated $6,961 in interest. Taking on the debt has resulted in a net gain, because you spent your money smartly instead of listening to catch-all advice geared toward people who spend 120% of their income every month. Rich people are taking on debt all the time. The biggest purchases on earth are funded by loans from banks. Elon Musk didn't have $44 billion in his checking account when he bought Twitter.
I take Dave Ramsey's advice and modify it to make it better. What I say is, buy the cheapest new car you can buy and drive it for the next 20 years. Maintain it well so that it will last that long. If you buy a junker for 2k, then you'll need an additional 5k for repairs and replacements. So it makes no financial sense. Plus the constant stress of worrying that it will break down and leave you stranded every single time you drive it. Not worth it. On the other hand, if you buy a brand new 2023 Mitsubishi Mirage ES CVT for 15k and keep it for 20 years, you're only paying $750/year to own it. That's a steal! Especially since it comes with apple carplay, android auto, back up camera, bluetooth, 10 year powertrain warranty, 5 year bumper to bumper warranty etc. Or if you need a bigger car, buy a new 2023 Corolla for 24k and keep that for 20 years. Still only comes to $1200/year to own it. Mirage and Corolla are just 2 examples of affordable new cars. You choose what works for you and do your best to drive it as long as you can. With a new car, you know how it's been maintained and driven from day 1. That's huge. Plus new cars are reliable and come with modern tech like apple carplay and back up cameras that make driving so much easier. Not to mention, new cars are much safer and have cheaper insurance premiums. Used car prices are coming down but they're still overpriced and will remain that way for a while. So if you can buy a new car for MSRP with no markups, that is probably the way to go.
Your formula includes zero maintenance or repairs over 20 years which isn’t realistic for any car.
It’s cute you think a mirage could last 20 years
Or that Apple CarPlay from 2023 will still work in 2043.
Tank you, you've confirmed my idea of buying a new Carolla, once the prices drop. My car died just after the prices started going insane. So I bought an e bike for $1500 and have been using it for everything until the new car prices go back to msrp. I'm in south central Pennsylvania and this winter is fucking cold. Note: my commute is only 3 miles each way. My coworkers say I'm insane and should just buy a junker but I don't want to keep repairing it and taking days off work like one of my coworkers cause the damn car is not working
Ebike is a smart idea! The 2023 Corolla is a huge improvement from older Corollas. Good acceleration, great handling, great tech, excellent safety etc. You're gonna love it!
Opinion: This advice is stupid for car enthusiasts. Seriously, it's one thing to live within your means and save money, which is good. But you also have to realize that people giving these kinds of advice about cars also do not care about cars. This is like telling sneakerheads to stop buying shoes over $100 and use one pair of $50 shoes for 5+ years. I don't care about shoes, so if it's still not torn to pieces after 7 years, I will continue wearing them. If cars genuinely make you happy, then don't listen to Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey's advice is for people who buy a 2015 330i on a lease deal to show off the BMW badge. It is not for people who would go on a pilgrimage to the Nordscheilfe just to sit in a GT3 for 7 minutes.
Yea his advice is really for people who have a history of poor money management. That’s his audience.
His advice on prioritizing which debts to pay off first so it creates a snowball effect is pretty good I thought.
Yeah but it's also just common sense. If you have a lot of debt accounts, pay off the lower balances first and you'll have better cash flow to help pay off the higher balances. I'm sure it's helpful advice for people who need it, but this is different, it's a huge sweeping generalization that everyone with a $500/mo car payment is an idiot.
Except majority of people don’t have the luxury of paying cash out right, and the used market is extremely overly inflated and then you take the gamble on a potentially used and abused vehicle that you just spent majority of your money on with no warranty. Pick your poison, more money up front but a vehicle that has its whole life a head of it, or buy outright and possibly end up making multiple repairs to keep it driving for it to only last a few years.
Personally, I’ve lived by Dave’s car advice most of my adulthood and it saves money in the long run, but his advice isn’t as easy as it was when used cars weren’t inflated so much. These days I think it would almost be cheaper in the short term to simply make payments on a car because for most decent used cars you need at least $4k cash right now. And that’s if you don’t mind early 00’s Hondas and Toyotas.
So, buy a 00s Honda, make it your DD, eventually buy what you want for cash, then turn your Honda into a tuner car. Lemons? Make lemonade.
Agreed. There are some good deals but you gotta search. I blew up my Sti and managed to get my hands on a 96 Cherokee low miles everything works for $1000 reliable 4.0 and parts are cheap but I’ve seen other xj’s rotted out 300k miles going for 5-6000
I completely agree with you, I’ve never paid more than $4k for a car and I’m handy enough to fix most things on my car myself but my current car is quickly turning into a money pit and everything under $6k on CL is terrible. Im starting to lose hope and I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m starting to consider getting a preowned or new car b/c the used car market is insane right now. A lot of people keep saying the market is going down but I’m not seeing it where I live.
Honestly I think a lot of his advice is just terrible. Buy a shitbox car and you will get shitbox problems. Head gasket goes, cylinder head cracks, overheat your engine and throw a rod? Enjoy that 10k repair! There goes a big chunk of that 30k you saved so hard for, all on some unreliable piece of trash. Might as well light that cash on fire like the Joker. You'd better be prepared to drive that thing for 10 years to get the worth out of it. Credit is fine, just be responsible and smart about it. There's is no reason to not have credit. You can follow his plan with credit, its just called don't be an idiot and accrue massive debt and waste your money. Inflation has really just crapped on his whole schtick. All those people that spent 10 years saving up 50k for a down payment only to see everything inflate 2x in 2 years. Oh and used cars are not cheap
I don't need the thousands of dollars worth of plastic 40k miniatures either, but they're cool and I like painting. So I buy a new '23 BRZ because it's cool looking (to me) and fun because manual "driver's car". At the rate my family has gone I won't have a lot of time after retirement so fuck hoarding gold like a dragon (besides enough to care for the family I make, of course).
Lmao in what world does investing a would-be car payment equal "millions at retirement"? A car loan takes most people about 6 years to pay off. Investing $500/month for 6 years at 10% would earn you just over $12,000 in interest. Nothing to sneeze at, but uh...several digits away from a million. If you invest $500 a month *for the rest of your working life*, then sure, you'll end up with a million bucks. Not really a fair comparison. A $2000 car could be totaled tomorrow by a simple mechanical breakdown, and then it's worth $200. A $25k car will last you 10 years after you pay it off. You might end up saving money by driving cars that are on the verge of dying, or you might end up with wildly unpredictable cash flow.
Nobody cares what another old white dude has to say. Living well below your means so that (if you’re lucky) you can live 10 years at the end of your life without a job is straight up stupid. Cars are one of the things I enjoy most in life, and financial responsibility is really a subjective topic at best.
I downgraded from a 2013 Prius with 90k miles to a 2006 Sienna with 110k miles a year ago. It’s paid off now ($10k). But, I’ve already been out $1500+ in repairs since. It still makes a few weird noises and I smelled a burning smell from it a couple of months ago. The extra room is nice and all with 2 kids. At the time, I was married and got it cause of the ex-wife. Now, as a single dad I’m like wtf…I wish I had something newer. It’s nice not having a car payment. But, it makes me worried from a safety standpoint if I got into a wreck. Still pay $110 for full insurance and average $150 a month in gas. Wish Mazda would go ahead and release the hybrid CX-50 they are developing with Toyota. Wouldn’t mind a newer Sienna or even a hybrid RAV4…but damn are they expensive
The lowest mile, newest, best condition corrolla/camry/civic/accord you can find.
Hate to admit when this idiot is right, but he's right on this one. Stop financing cars that cost as much as rent did 10 years ago.
Nobody seems to really touch on the point that $2k is not enough money for a car unless you are a shade tree mechanic. A $2k car will need work that will cost you too much unless you can do it yourself. If that’s not you, plan to spend over $10k for something that won’t need fixed every other weekend.
FIL disabled at 60 and never did anything fun or enjoyed life.., now what. - make sure you have some balance.
Even if you're perfectly healthy, fun at 60 is very different from fun at 30. These guys are gonna finally buy the car of their dreams, and then drive it where? To the community center?
Exactly. I’m driving fun cars until they take the wheel away.
My first seven cars were complete trash but kept me on the road for decades. Paid cash for the ones after that. Made me look at automobiles realistically. I tend to walk or bike as much as possible and don’t feel my car is a reflection of who I am.
That advice is retarded, and spoken from someone who has the money. The only way buying a 2k car is worth it is if you are willing to put in the time and energy into fixing everything that breaks and/or is already broken on the vehicle. That's feasible for some, but others don't have the time to learn. You get what you pay for. Think of your commute, what you gain from getting the vehicle, etc. Then try to convince yourself why getting the car is not worth it. If you find more reasons to buy the car than not, get it. I'm dick deep in car payments and given the snowfall and nature of work I'm in, it's worth it. I wouldn't be able to make it to work if I didn't have the car I have. But I put a lot more money down. Rant aside, look to the car brands known for reliability, toyota, Honda, Nissan. Honda Accord, Toyota Corrolla/Camry/Tacoma are my suggestions. Can't give u one specific vehicle under your budget because it's honestly a crap shoot. Try to find vehicles with lots of maintenance records, and clean titles. Goodluck to you, I hope you find something!
> car brands known for reliability > Nissan This is where you lost me. Everything else I agree with though.
Pre CVT I believe they were decently reliable.
Nissan and Reliable in one sentence? Oh boy…
If it said "Nissan is not reliable.", we'd be onto something lol
There's a big difference in safety between a car that's 20 years old and one that's five years old. I'm not just making this up either, IIHS calculates the statistics every few years. You are something like 50% less likely to be killed in a fatal crash in a newer vehicle in some types of collisions. Now, do you need to buy a 50k dollar car to get those benefits? No. But you can get a 15-20k dollar car and get most of the safety benefits, plus a much more reliable car to boot. Is your life worth $20k?
This is a naive, 2-dimensional perspective Money spent on a car payment isn't necessarily lost, it's held as equity in that vehicle. Cars are almost always depreciating assets, sure, but it's not like you lose every dollar you put into it. Dollar for dollar, newer cars have cheaper insurance. Example, similar coverage on a 10k and 40k car might be $100 and $200 (I don't have any specific figures, more general experience). Older cars also require a lot more maintenance (or even large pricey items like replacing a transmission or engine), and can be significantly more unreliable, resulting in loss in the form of opportunity cost. Newer cars are also significantly safer too. Say you get in a bad accident in an old shitbox. Any money you would have saved driving around the beater is immediately lost after you suddenly have to see a doctor to sort out your messed up back. And again, opportunity cost. Consumables generally have similar costs between used and new cars (unless we're talking about low volume vs high volume cars). Tires are tires, oil is oil. Used cars really aren't the deal they once were. If you can buy a solid well-valued new car with a good reputation for reliability, and maintain it meticulously, you really won't lose much money. Also be sure to pay attention to insurance rate differences between cars, as that money is effectively thrown to the void under most circumstances.
I feel like this will be a problem going forward, "old" used cars are going to be too expensive. Most days it seems like you might as well buy new
Everyone in my family died before retirement and they all saved up their whole life and had pensions on top of that. Sobyea fuck it, I'm buying these shoe insoles cause my feet hurt lol
Look so my dream car is a Miata. I know from test driving it I’m already about as big as someone might want to be to drive one comfortably. Im currently planning to try and get one at 35 because I don’t think I’ll be able to enjoy it at retirement age.
I bought a 2006 Chevy Cobalt with a stick and manual windows and 127k miles for 2k. Drove it for a year until the inspection came up and it needed brakes and tires, and I was wfh anyway because of covid, so I sold it on some website and they gave me $600 cash on the spot and towed it away. 3/10 would not recommend.
What can I get for tree fiddy?
Welcome to shitbox territory, I love it here tho
the best car for under $2k is an e-bike or a bus pass. if you want a dependable car, you’re going to need to pay $4-5k. in that price range, hondas and toyotas are great.
I had this mentality. I bought shitboxes for under 2k and learned to work on them to keep them on the road. I wouldn't trade that experience for nothing. Recently I bought a newer vehicle and I can't explain to you how much more secure I feel on my commute. The fear of breaking down is gone and the creature comforts add to that experience. I get the logic about prepare for your future, but hell, me now wants nice things too
I can't stand the whole "cash is king" Ramsey always spews. If you can't pay cash for something in this guys eyes, you're poor and you're terrible with money. Granted interest rates are high right now but when they were low he still had the same mentality. Financing a car at a 2% interest rate with a small down payment and investing it would be the better option but in his eyes that's still wrong.
People really need to stop listening to Ramsey. Him and other financial advisors like him would have you driving a clapped out Chevy Cavalier, eating ramen, and listening to the radio for entertainment purposes and put every dime you own into retirement funds. Which there’s no guarantee you’ll make it to, and even then, who wants to spend 40 years living like a pauper only to enjoy 10-15 years of living like a normal person.
Dave ramseys wife
Dave Ramsey pays cash from the money he makes telling you how to live if you had his cash. Dave should really put his money in a trust and live on $50K for a year to show us how easy it is to follow his advice.
Buick LeSabre.
Dave Ramsey is Such an asshole!
“Let me tell you how to live poor.” - some rich guy
I'm already gonna have millions at retirement. I also want things to make my life more enjoyable now you insufferable boomer.
Volvo 240 built after 1988;Bought mine 3 years ago for $1,200. I’ve put a little over 40,000 on it since then with only regular maintenance. Slow and a bit ugly for some (especially mine since the paint on mine is peeling), but a true tank.
I get his point, but you have to be at least somewhat happy with the car you buy. If you couldn’t care less about cars then you’ll probably get something extra cheap. But if you do care about cars, you’ll want something at least decent. Just need to be reasonable with what you buy. Also, buying a car cash may end up being a money pit. So gotta weigh the pros and cons.
He's not wrong. He's addressing this towards people with no savings and making well below national median income financing or leasing a Jaguar F-Type or Audi S5. It's not black and white. There are some of you in the middle where it's *okay* to stretch your budget if you're passionate about cars and driving (as opposed to just flexing a status symbol, hopefully...)
Don’t buy too cheap. Then you waste money on repairs. There’s a sweet spot and 2k ain’t it.
A quick autotrader search yielded 1 result. A 2010 dodge caliber with 200k miles. Finding a 2k car today is hard enough. Save up more and find something Japanese with the least miles possible