fordmantpw
Veteran Member
Maybe 10 years ago there were several with big SUV's and then gas prices spiked...
About half just stopped paying and had them repossessed.
Grandmother always said if you don't have the cash in hand... you cannot afford it.
Remembering this has saved me a couple of times!
You know what got me, is the number of people trading in big SUV's on smaller cars to 'save money.' Had they put the pencil to the paper, they would have realized that they were losing money on trade-in value to save money at the pump, not to mention the higher payments they were taking on.
As far as paying cash, on our last couple car purchases, I have actually taken the trade-in money in cash and put it in our ROTH IRA and took out the full loan for the car. The stock market was low, it was a good time to buy, and I was earning 3.5%+ in dividends (not counting the increasing stock value) vs. the 2% interest on the car loan. With that said, though, I HATE having loans so I paid them off as quick as we could.