Julie Gumm - Author

Free Cars for Life

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Got your attention now didn’t I?

Did you know that the average American family owes approximately $900 a month in car payments?

Kind of crazy isn’t it. And it’s not $900/month toward an “investment”. That money will never be recaptured. Rather we pay $900 a month for the privilege of driving a newer car every month.

We’ve been programmed to think that it’s expected. A car payment is a fact of life.

Right?

That’s what Mark and I thought for years while we traded up and traded in cars over the first six years of marriage.

Want to know a better way? How about free cars for life? Watch this video, but then finish reading for a few final thoughts.

So what’d ya think? Totally makes sense doesn’t it.

But here’s what we found. In the midst of redoing our budget, cutting unnecessary expenses and driving debt-free cars we realized we don’t need a $26k car. We don’t even need an $11k car.

You can find good, reliable, low-mileage (60-8ok) cars for anywhere from $3,500 – 7,500.

And the difference?

Save it, invest it, give it away.

It’s up to you!

If you’re really dedicated, maybe you can join the Junky Car Club 🙂

Driving our Debt Around

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Part 3 of our Debt-Free Story

As I’ve mentioned, I come from a family who drove cars until they died. In the entire time I grew up I only remember my parents buying 4 cars including the one they had before I was born. One was a 1970 Ford. Then a Pontiac hatchback and two Honda Accords.

The Ford lasted about 17 years before my brother totaled it. One Honda met the same fate (different brother) and the other two were driven until it no longer made sense to repair them. The 3 kids never had their own vehicle but we managed schedules and shared the vehicles w/ our family of 5. There was lots of carpooling and ride sharing going on.

I told Mark early on in our marriage that if it wasn’t a convertible (my dream car) then I didn’t much care what I drove.

When we graduated college I was driving our 92 Nissan Sentra. About three months after we’d moved to San Antonio I got into a fairly minor accident, rear ending someone when my brakes locked up on a wet road. It did a pretty good number on the front of the car despite being pretty low speed.

Suddenly Mark was determined that I needed a “bigger, safer car”. I’d seen the cars Mark had driven in high school. “Bigger” meant “grandma” car. No thank you! We compromised on a Dodge Intrepid which we purchased, trading in the repaired Sentra.

Of course that meant trading in my $156 car payment for a $267 car payment.

A couple years later Mark decided to downgrade the debt he had on his truck. We sold it to his parents and he bought an older used Mazda 626. This seemed like a turning point in our car buying patterns. Our car debt was going down, not up!

Oh wait…

About a year later, Mark got an itch to buy an SUV. We only had about a year of payments left on the Mazda 626 so I pleaded that we not get rid of it. So that meant it became mine and we sold the Intrepid (again to his parents) and bought an  ’97 Ford Explorer.

It was during this time that Dave Ramsey implanted himself into our lives and our car buying habits would soon change forever.

By the way – if you’re counting, that’s 4 years of marriage; 6 vehicles.

Archives

Joining Financial Baggage

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Part 2 of Financial Freedom Friday (Read Part 1)

One of the hardest things about marriage is arguably meshing two different money styles and two different financial backgrounds.

I came from a very rigid financial family – my dad is a spreadsheet guy (well back then he was a green ledger sheet guy) who tracked every penny. There was never a lot of extra money but we had what we needed and my parents put all of us kids through Christian schools and through college.

We drove cars until they died (one was 17 years old when my brother finally totaled it), rarely ate out and never got really expensive gifts.

Despite this upbringing I will be the first to admit that I am more of a spender than a saver. I got my first job at 15 working at Burger King, and held down a job consistently on into adulthood. My jobs only served to support my shopping and social habits. Sure, my senior year I saved up some money for college but I didn’t really have a savings goal or any big motivation.

Mark grew up in similar financial circumstances but from a much less structured system. So he had even less experience with living on a budget.

All of this contributed to our disjointed system – well it wasn’t even really a system. We could make a budget, sure, but had trouble sticking to it and soon found it wasn’t working and would give up for awhile.

We’d have what we call “The Visa War”. I would get the Visa bill, open it, keel over in shock from the balance and then begin to vehemently highlight everything on the bill that Mark had charged. I would total it all up and march into the office and declare something like “Did you know you charged $457 this month?!”

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. I am not proud.

Because usually the unhighlighted expenses (mine) were nearly that if not more J

It took us nearly 7 years of marriage before we finally got our act together.

Next Week: Driving Our Debt Around