Your Car, Your Wealth

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I’ve always preferred to buy low mileage cars that are 2-5 years old because they often sell for less than 50-60% of their original sales price. I’ve financed a few of them and had car payments ranging from $151 to $275 per month. My Toyota Avalon passed 232,000 miles last month and began to have the minor problems that eventually lead to major repairs. Luckily, it sold quickly and I found a low mileage ten year old car at an affordable price. Before finding that car, I stopped at a few dealerships to see what they had to offer. Wow, […] Read more »

From Car Payment To Clunker To Upgrade

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A Little History When we started our Total Money Makeover in January of 2008 with just over $25,000 in debt, not including our house, we made some extreme decisions.  I only say extreme because most people looked at me like I was insane.  The truth is that I was.  I was insane to keep driving a car with a payment. We had a very nice 2004 Pontiac Vibe that we absolutely loved.  It was a great car!  The problem was that the car had a monthly price tag of $300 a month plus additional costs such as higher insurance and […] Read more »

Public Service Announcement: Cash For Clunkers Equals Debt For Suckers

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Poooof!! And The Government Said Let There Be…Three Billion Dollars! Now this is just getting silly!  This post is about DEBT!  The Cash For Clunkers program has been, or is in the process of being revitalized.  Yep, that’s right.  Two billion dollars out of thin air, or maybe I should say, out of your children’s children’s front pocket.  Debt is dumb and so is this ridiculous program! Let me see if I understand this correctly.  The Government taxes you into servitude, creates a program in which you are said to receive FREE money by giving you up to $4,500 in […] Read more »

Motivation 101 – Saving To Buy, Instead Of Buying To Slave!

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Can You Buy A House, Have A Car, Or Go To College Without Debt? With a plan you can!  It seems like every time I write an article like this I lose a few subscribers.  That’s fine, I am fully aware that I will not please everyone.  This would be too easy if I could, and frankly I like the challenge. For some reason people seem to get angry about someone (me) telling them that it is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE to live life without accepting the chains and bondage that come with debt.  I could speculate all day long about why […] Read more »

A Sacrifice Is Not A Loss But A Gain

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Returning Thoughts I am in my car a significant amount of time.  I have tons of time to think about so many things.  One of the questions I find myself asking is “What in the world do people say when they see my car?”.  My first response is usually laughter because I imagine what people might say who would never be caught dead in such a car.  To make it even more amusing I have a sticker on my bumper that says, “Act Your Wage”, beside another “Anti-Debt” sticker. To me this makes TOTAL sense, but the average person might […] Read more »

Cause and Effect (picture blog)

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  CAUSE & EFFECT       It’s basically as simple as this. If you don’t have debt and lots of payments, your income becomes a tool for you to plan, give, build wealth, and save! Often people try to get out of a problem by fixing the symptom instead of the problem. If you are struggling financially and you are wondering why, add up all of your debt payments. In most cases the solution will be right in front of you. If you had $1,000 more a month to spend because you didn’t have the car payments, you would […] Read more »