Comments on: How cars affect your financial freedom

By: We Bought A “New” Car This Weekend | Bible Money Matters

We Bought A “New” Car This Weekend | Bible Money Matters — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:23:44 +0000

[...] How cars affect your financial freedom @ christianpf.com [...]

By: New Cars or Retirement? | Crackerjack Greenback

New Cars or Retirement? | Crackerjack Greenback — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:51:30 +0000

[...] at Christian Personal Finance has a great post about how cars affect your financial freedom. Definitely check out his post. He estimates that eliminating a $400/month car payment could mean [...]

By: Johua Tree

Johua Tree — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:15:55 +0000

Francis,

First let me say, that is fabulous! Basically, you are doing about 10k a year in driving on average and that is below the norm by a good amount. ( Make sure you pass that on to your insurance company if you haven’t already, it could benefit your premium a bit )

Second, you have a great attitude about taking public transportation. There are way too many people driving when they could almost as eaily hop on a local transit route and still land at work around the same time.

Keep being an inspiration !

By: Francis

Francis — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:48:38 +0000

My wife and I are in a prime situation. We live reasonably close to most major services (work, food) and my employer finances a bus pas for my commute to work. We have only a single car, it’s reaching its 10 year old anniversary next year and is just starting to come over 100,000 miles. We plan on keeping this car to 200,000 miles, and better yet, try to keep with a one car household. I’d love to still be able to keep the one car arrangement with 2-3 kids in the years to come. I’d love to hear about those families who have only one car!

By: Joshua

Joshua — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:03:36 +0000

Rodonno,

Thanks for the response. I am very glad to hear that you made such a successful life change and are sticking with a plan. It is very easy to fall back into old habits if we stop looking at our goals and setting new ones as we accomplish each one of them.

We are in what I consider to be my favorite (tongue in cheek ) stage of a Ramsey caller: debt free…. exept for the house. That almost strikes me as an oxymoron

By: Redonno

Redonno — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:47:41 +0000

Joshua,

Thanks for asking. I realized that many family and friends were always struggling financially and I didn’t want to live my life that way. At one point in my life everything I had was via monthly payments and it was squeezing the life out of my paycheck.

When my wife and I got married we stumbled upon Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover book, we read it. Tallied up our debt which was more than our household income but we know through diligence, hard work and faith we could be debt free. We knew if we had no debt, we could retire millionaires. Hope my response wasn’t to long, there were other reasons but I wanted to keep it short as possible. By the way we are on the home stretch!!! Are you debt free or working on it?

By: Joshua

Joshua — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:06:40 +0000

Redono,

I would be curious to know what prompted you to want to get out of debt?

By: Brent

Brent — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:42:12 +0000

I wish my cousin that has 2 brand new cars but lives with his wife’s parents would read this. They are “car poor” because they had to have brand new. MADNESS!

By: Redonno

Redonno — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:44:02 +0000

I agree. This is a good article. Car payments are many times the #1 obstacle that causes the average family not to achieve financial stability.

While I am a car guy because I want to look “nice” while I drive, I knew it was more important for my wife and I to get out of debt first. So when we began our journey I sold my 03 Altima for a 98 Escort and it was a smart move. I hate car payments, I’ll never go back. I would much rather save, pay cash and drive a “nice” car without that nagging payment.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:06:55 +0000

You may have highlighted this before, but here is an excellent illustration of this article from Dave Ramsey, called “Drive Free. Retire Rich”…
http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/lms/drive_free/player.cfm