Blog Posts
Americans have grown accustomed to car loans. It just seems normal to buy cars that are brand new and finance them for $300, $400, or even $500 a month. This is a culture with a mindset that $300 or $500 a month is affordable. However, I just want to say: “Paying a car payment every month is just insanity.” Just invest that car payment every month and you will completely your financial position. Instead of just using the money to pay for a car, you would be investing for your future.
As we begin 2019, I like to take a look back every year at our expenses that deal with cars. Last year, I even contemplated selling my car, because I had just finished paying a huge repair bill. However after looking at the numbers, I was happy to keep my car around another year. I have been in the process of completing a 5-year study, where I compare car repair expenses with the average monthly car payment in America today. For the past 4 years, we were better off to keep our old cars and avoid that dreaded car payment.
In the future, we plan on sending our daughter to college. And like most parents, we worry about the cost of college and how we will pay for it. Well some stats on college tuition found my inbox and I thought that the information in the article was so important that I had to write an article about the rising tuition costs.
Over the entirety of this blog, I have continued to preach the importance of buying used cars, driving these cars until their wheels fall off and always buy cars in cash. What would push me to think about getting rid of my old car? It's simply one number:
Two summers ago, my wife and I were jumping into home ownership for the first time. We hit the ground running and started to tackle our mortgage. We have always had a goal of paying off the mortgage early and used this mindset to make extra payments on our mortgage.
Last year, we were on fire and paid off a lot of our mortgage. I am going to recap where we stood last August, then we will move into the year 2 mortgage update. By August of 2016, we had made 12 mortgage payments, plus multiple extra principal payments.
