SD <siddharthgdalal[at]COLDmail.com> writes:

- quote -

There's "people who buy nice cars" and there are people
who are spending 37% of their income (as calculated
by another poster) on that car.

That's way too much on a car.

I'm all for folks spending as much as they want on a car
*if they can afford it*. The OP is trying to figure out how
to build up some savings yet paying *that* much on a car?
Those are conflicting actions.


--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

I'm guessing you take home around $1900/month after taxes. this
implies you have around $450 per month to "save".

what are you saving for?

goal #1, save as much before taxes as possible. If your employer has a
401k, 403B or other retirement plan, use that. This money will be
taken out of paycheck before taxes, which allows you to save "more than
$450" if my guesses above to your take home pay are accurate.

goal #2 if you are saving for something other than retirement, don't
use 401 k or 403b plans, use a bank account, borkerage account, or
mutual fund provider.

when saving money, if you want to see it saved, use CD's, money markets
and other cash derivative type investments. When saving money, if you
want it to grow, use stocks, real estate and take some risks with the
money. If you want it to save and grow, use a mix of money markets,
CDs, real estate and stocks.

This is general advice and is worth exactly what you paid for it. I do
agree the car is more of a liability for you than a necessity. And I
pay cash for everything and that helps me save even more. I can only
spend what I have and no vacations get too far out of hand.

On Fri, 2005-04-29 at 20:40 +0000, Neil wrote:
- quote -

Shop around for auto insurance. You are being overcharged (at least if
you are over 25 with good driving history). Make a budget. See what you
spend on for two months (keep track of every $). See what were the
expenses you can easily live without and don't make them any more

This group is notorious for slamming people who buy nice cars. I
wouldn't worry too much. As long as you budget properly, make a savings
target for yourself and meet or beat the target and don't pay interest
to credit cards you are ok.

justchillin0440 wrote:
- quote -


Goal setting is personal, so you'll have to determine it in your own,
or with your spouse if you are married. However, I am 30 and have
started making plans for retirement - how I want to live, where I want
to live, etc. Those kinds of goals, while they may be somewhat
ambiguous, can help you determine the kind of saving you need to do.

- quote -

True you can't know. However, you can look at past performance of the
market to get an idea of what may occur with long-term investments.

- quote -

Set up goals for yourself regarding your retirement saving, kid's
college saving, shedding debt, etc. Helps give you a compass so you
know what you are working toward.

When making a financial plan, how far in the future do you project out?
Obviousely, the further you try to project, the more ambiguous your
plan is going to get since you cannot possibly know what the future
will bring. How much detail do you include in a financial plan? At some
point, you are just guessing about details that are near impossible to
project (like exact revenue dollars, or exact expenditures). Or in my
case, I am planning to explore many different business startup
possibilities in search of one that will prove to be a viable and
sustainable business. I can project the likely success of each of these
business ventures, however it is difficult to project the success of my
overall financial situation given that I am not certain where this path
will lead to.

In article <1114900130.926673.281120[at]z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> ,
"justchillin0440" <justchillin0440[at]netscape.net> wrote:

- quote -

I think that is simply ages old wisdom. I'd steer clear of
the Rich Dad/Poor Dad stuff. It is a lot of hype to get people
to join into their pyramid scams and real estate syndicates.
Its pretty easy to lose a lot of money quickly when dealing
with these kinds of sharks.

- quote -

Its like going on a 5 day road trip without a map. You have
no clue where you are going to end up, and you will spend
most of your time lost or wondering where you are going.
The idea is to set some goals, then figure out how to make
those goals happen. If you undertake that journey, you want
to track how you are doing, and adjust your plan as needed.
It really isn't a big deal to do it, but it is a big deal
if you fail to do it.

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john[at]johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

BMS,

I am interested in your response to this question. "It is not what
you make that counts, it is what you keep." Are you quoting Diane
Kenedy from the "Rich Dads Advisor Series: Tax loopholes for the Rich."
If so, can you recommend any other useful books on financial planning.
I am 23 years old and have started building my wealth, with a decent
amount of succeess. However, I have never put together a detailed
financial plan. I have used quicken to track and categorize all of my
expenses for the past three years and am just beginning to use the
budgeting features, but I have never made a financial plan and am not
quite certain how to go about doing this. Any suggestions?

In article <1114814876.811077.220210[at]l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> ,
"Nick" <NA12345[at]gmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

There is your error in thinking. If an old car breaks down,
you have other options like fixing it, buying a similar car,
or buying a reasonable used car. Fixing a car is almost always
the best option from a financial standpoint. It is unlikely
that you will ever spend more per month on repairs than what
payments on a new car costs. In your case, buying a 3 or 4
year old Honda Accord or Toyota Camry might have cost about
1/3 what you paid for the luxury car, but more importantly,
the gas, license plates, and insurance would cost far more,
and that car might go another 200,000 miles without investing
in anything other than tires, routine maintenance, and perhaps
a timing belt.

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john[at]johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

The car is way too expensive - $400 payment + $200 insurance + $300 gas
is $900 per month, or more than 37% of your net income. The current
book value is about $22,000. Sell it and get something in the $10K-$12K
range that gets better mileage.

You can also drop the cell phone and use your parent's land line. For
emergency calls only, carry a Tracfone - about $100 per year.

The golf is something else that is probably not essential.

John Cowart

In article <1114799204.420174.210060[at]z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> ,
"Neil" <NA12345[at]gmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

Well, that is not how you do it. You save money by not buying
an expensive car. In fact, if you said you wanted to spend
your money rather than saving, this is how you do it.

- quote -

I ran these numbers. In order to spread $21,000 over 60, you
have in interest rate of around 6%, which means that you are
spending another $4000 on interest. So, this is actually a
$25,000 car. Plus, you likely pay about 25% of your income
on taxes. So, to get that $25,000 car, you had to earn about
$34,000. So, you blew almost every dollar of an entire year
of paychecks on a car, one that will turn to rust and dust
within a few years. The question is if the car will outlive
the payments?

Since you spend everything you earn on this car, you don't
have money left over for stuff like insurance, cell phones,
and credit cards. It is amazing that someone who has free
housing and food is able to run themselves bankrupt like this.

- quote -

Don't do what you did. You should never spend more than 20% of
your income on a car. That means you should be looking for
something in the $7,500 range, not a luxury model Infiniti.

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john[at]johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

Thanks for the reply

The Credit card expenses are mostly used on gas, I figured using a
worst case scenario that I would spend that much on a month. I figure
gas would be about 300 dollars alone. The other expenses are
restaurants, golf and other miscellaneous things.

In terms of the car, my old car broke down so I needed a new one, my
family friend gave me a good deal on the newer car (for the mileage on
the car, it was probably the best and lowest price out there)

Remember, it isn't what you make that counts, it is what you keep.

The car was a mistake and what are you putting on your credit cards at $800
per month?


"Neil" <NA12345[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1114799204.420174.210060[at]z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

Hi,

I'm trying to save up my money. I just recently purchased at 2002
Infinti QX4 (SUV) for $21000. I live at home with my parents and I
work full time and make a salary of $38000. My only other expenses
besides car payments of $400 per month (60 months...) are car insurance
($200 per month), cell phone ($50 a month) and credit cards (roughly
about $800 a month).

So if you are counting, my monthly expenses are $1450 a month.

Would anyone be able to offer any advice on helping me save some money.


--Nick