Well, we did it again! We paid cash for another car! This time, it was for a new truck for my husband. It’s his first new truck in 13 years.
And in case you’re new here, my husband has been in need of a new truck for a while now. “Edna” as we call his Colorado couldn’t tow his business’ trailer and at 300,000 miles, we knew eventually we were going to need to replace her. Granted, my husband has meticulously maintained the mechanical stuff on Edna so she runs like a freaking champ.
But alas, she couldn’t haul and wouldn’t be able to stop my husband’s work trailer.
Good ol’Edna…
My husband is adverse to buying used cars. Don’t get me wrong, he fully understand that new cars lose their value the second you roll off the lot in them, but he doesn’t like “buying other people’s problems”.
Trust me, when we were buying my Sequoia, he was crazy about it having to come from a reputable dealership and having to be well maintained.
Debt or No Debt?
This aversion to buying used was causing issues when we were looking for a new truck for my husband. My husband even wanted to take out a loan to buy a truck!
Y’all clearly know how I reacted to that…”ummm, no honey.”
It was tough though convincing my husband to say “no” to debt and to pay cash for a truck. He was just not happy with any truck and there seemed to always be something wrong with one of the trucks we found in our budget.
Well after a lot of praying, God answered and one random day while my husband was chatting with a buddy who owns a rather large HVAC company in our area, he stated, “hey, I’ve got one of our trucks that we’re planning on selling that I’ll sell to you.”
This truck was a fleet truck has been fleet maintained and has all of its service logs. Seriously, it’s an answered prayer.
Debt-free is the way to go!
We paid $5,000 cash for a “new-to-us” 2008 GMC 2500HD Sierra with 150,000 miles and a complete towing package, including the gooseneck hitch.
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It’s everything that we could have wanted in a truck to tow my husband’s trailer (that he also paid cash for)!
Here’s the thing, I know that most folks either don’t think it’s possible to pay cash for a car or that there’s no point in taking money from savings when you can get a loan for a car. But you know what? It’s way easier to pay yourself back than it is to pay off debt.
And let’s be real here.
It’s a truck. It has a job to do and that’s really it. Why on earth go into tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt for the next 5 to 6 years when you can pay in cash and pay yourself back in a year (or even less time than that)?
So how do you make it happen?
Here’s the thing, if you really want to avoid going into debt (and you really should) the first thing you want to do is set up a savings account specifically for your new car or truck.
Then set a goal – how much money do you want to have set aside to go buy a car with? This amount is totally dependent on you and what you’re wanting. If you have a current car that you could sell for a good chunk of change, then you may be able to save less since you’ll have cash from the sale of your current car.
The next thing is to look at your monthly budget and determine how much you can set aside every month/week/paycheck towards your savings account. I highly recommend that you set this up as an automatic draft from your checking account to your savings account. This will help to keep you in check and to keep it “out-of-sight, out-of-mind”.
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Then, all that’s left is to follow through! Just save and save until you reach your goal. The great thing is, if you take any extra income you get from selling off some unwanted items, or a refund or bonus check, you can build up your savings even faster!
Okay, so you tell me, have you ever purchased a car in cash before? Or have you been awesome and never had a car loan before?
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