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Percentage of monthly income spent on a car?

390 messages,  Last post on Mar 21, 2009 at 5:50 PM

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What is this discussion about? Car Financing


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#321 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [joesmith2] by qbrozen
Feb 27, 2008 (8:34 am)
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Replying to: joesmith2 (Feb 26, 2008 9:51 pm)

I don't carry collision insurance, fire insurance, theft insurance, because I don't have to. Those are all rip-offs. If you buy a new car, and it gets stolen, they'll give you what the car's worth.
 
???
But if you buy a new car and don't have collision and slide off the road on black ice and total it, you get NOTHING! I don't find that smart at all.
 
I agree, collision is not worth it once the car reaches a certain value. But that certainly doesn't apply to NEW cars.
 
No fire insurance? You mean on your house?? How do you figure "you don't have to?" You mean you have no gas, no electricity, no lightning storms, and no neighbors that have any of those things? Wow! Where do you live??
#322 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [qbrozen] by jlawrence01
Feb 27, 2008 (5:07 am)
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Replying to: qbrozen (Feb 27, 2008 8:34 am)

But if you buy a new car and don't have collision and slide off the road on black ice and total it, you get NOTHING! I don't find that smart at all.
 
But if you are buying $3-4k vehicles like the poster was talking about, why not self-insure and spend the delta on higher liabilty limits. (The only exception is that you need to carry coverage should you rent a lot of cars.)
 
However, many insurance companies are now offering to replace a purchased NEW vehicle with a new one should the car be totaled in the first 12 months of ownership.
#323 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [jlawrence01] by qbrozen
Feb 27, 2008 (6:34 am)
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Replying to: jlawrence01 (Feb 27, 2008 5:07 am)

But if you are buying $3-4k vehicles like the poster was talking about
 
Well, that's where his/her post got confusing. If you look at the quote I took from the post, he/she FIRST mentions a "new" car. It is not until later that he/she mentions a clunker.
#324 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [joesmith2] by mattandi
Feb 27, 2008 (10:22 am)
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Replying to: joesmith2 (Feb 26, 2008 9:51 pm)

I'm 60, and I've owned at least 50 cars. I've never made a car payment in my life
 
You had a car payment. Just not a monthly one.
 
Not that your basic point of living debt free is so bad though.
#325 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [qbrozen] by jlawrence01
Feb 27, 2008 (5:33 pm)
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Replying to: qbrozen (Feb 27, 2008 6:34 am)

Point noted. I went back and reread it a couple of times.
 
When you say 50 cars in 30 years, you have to be buying a lot of junkers in the mix (even if you have several at a time).
#326 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [jlawrence01] by joesmith2
Feb 27, 2008 (8:26 pm)
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Replying to: jlawrence01 (Feb 27, 2008 5:33 pm)

Actually I've owned cars for over 40 years. When I mentioned fire insurance I was talking about cars, not houses. I paid 15,000 for the car I'm driving now, a 1996 Mercury Grand Marquis. When I bought it in 1999 I carried collision/theft on it for 2 or 3 years, but because the amount I would have gotten had the car gotten stolen had gone down, and the insurance premiums had not, I dropped it. People who finance a car for 7 years have to carry that kind of insurance for 7 years, even though what they'll get if the car is totalled or stolen might not even pay off what they owe on it. People all the time try to trade in their car and find out they owe more on it than its worth. Today kids will get their first job, and go out and buy a new car with payments almost as high as a week's check, plus they're paying more for insurance because of all the coverage required. If they get laid off, then what happens? I listen to talk radio where people call in for advice about their bad financial situation. They almost always have 2 car payments, a house payment, they're making 50,000 a year but they can't pay their credit cards.
 
The best advice I can give is ALWAYS pay your credit card bill in full to avoid the finance charges, even if it means you have to miss some meals, and don't make car payments.
#327 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [joesmith2] by qbrozen
Feb 28, 2008 (8:08 am)
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Replying to: joesmith2 (Feb 27, 2008 8:26 pm)

When I bought it in 1999 I carried collision/theft on it for 2 or 3 years, but because the amount I would have gotten had the car gotten stolen had gone down, and the insurance premiums had not, I dropped it.
 
Well, now that makes MUCH more sense than your original blanket statements.
 
When I mentioned fire insurance I was talking about cars, not houses.
 
How odd. Your insurance company sounds a bit fishy. I have never been offered fire insurance as an independent option on any car on any policy I've ever had or even read. (???)
#328 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [qbrozen] by kyfdx HOST
Feb 28, 2008 (10:33 am)
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Replying to: qbrozen (Feb 28, 2008 8:08 am)

I think he is referring to comprehensive coverage.. fire, theft, etc..
#329 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [kyfdx] by qbrozen
Feb 28, 2008 (11:45 am)
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Replying to: kyfdx (Feb 28, 2008 10:33 am)

he must be.
Its odd to refer to it as fire insurance, IMHO, since that is probably the least likely of all the scenarios it would cover.
 
Fyi: I just looked it up and my Hagerty policy has 2 categories only (other than PIP and property damage): Collision and Other Than Collision.
 
So that "other" category obviously covers a heck of a lot of potential problems.
#330 of 390
Re: Average Monthly Payment [qbrozen] by kyfdx HOST
Feb 28, 2008 (2:22 pm)
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Replying to: qbrozen (Feb 28, 2008 11:45 am)

I think the term, fire insurance, is typical of someone who grew up in the '50s or before (which I assume he did, if he has been buying cars for over 40 years). I have family members who still use that term in place of homeowner's insurance.
 
Not that I'm all that young... I can still remember a Herman comic strip panel, where he is sitting in the insurance office, and says, "I need all the fire insurance I can get, by next Friday".
 
Oh well.. No car payments is still a good thing..

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