you forgot the last part of the quote VDC.
maybe i should not have said the âmarketâ. i have seen that seem to happen in individual stocks or groups of stocks though
^
Do you mean, âafter which the insiders buy it allback at a fraction of what they sold it forâ?
I am not an insider, yet I somehow managed to figure out that Ford stock at a little less than $8.00 per share was a relative bargain that would likely pay off handsomely in the future. It is currently selling for $17.50 per share, so if I sell it today, I will have more than doubled my money. And, of course, that doesnât take into consideration that I have been collecting dividends on that stock for several years.
Did Ford insiders buy that stock at an even lower price than I did?
Probably they did, but that doesnât negate the reality that I have done very well with that same stock, despite not being an insider.
OrâŠdo you consider a gain of 113% to be bad?
My only regret is that I bought only 100 shares of Ford at that very low price.
There will always be peopleâinsiders or notâwho will do better than others, but to continue to rationalize that ONLY insiders can make money in the stock market is just plain wrong.
kind of a moot point anywayâŠ, i m broke! 
and not Hillary broke eitherâŠ
Hello, there. Looks like things have gotten a bit afield from the car stuff. Could you please redirect the discussion back to cars somehow? Thank you.
"If bank CDs were offering you 8% interest and FDIC protection and income from the markets was taxed as wages would the market/bank comparison be somewhat more favorable to the banks. @Bing? "
Banks couldnât offer 8% rates unless they charged 12 plus % for loans. Clearly not going to happen for a while again. 90% of my stock money is taxed at ordinary income levels so I get no benefit from Cap Gains tax. For risk averse people I would never suggest they should go beyond their comfort zone but I have seen people be so cautious and over 30 years of saving made very little gain from their savings. I used to buy tons of savings bonds too at 4% and had I put the money into a normal multual fund, I could have funded another year of college from the difference.
Now back to cars. Nothing wrong with financing a car if you earn more than the finance rate and you can easily afford it. Nothing wrong with financing a home if you can afford it. Nothing wrong with paying for a transmission overhaul on a credit card so you can pay it off in several months instead. Just nothing golden about paying cash for everything but people should do what they are comfortable with and can afford. Putting an $800 purse though on a credit card would not be my idea of being wise though. Debit card maybe.
Everyone should have $2000 in a savings account for each daily-driven car they own with over 100k miles, in addition to a rainy-day fund of 6 months living expenses. THEN, you can âinvest.â
"Could you please redirect the discussion back to cars somehow? "
Well, I did mention buying stock in Ford Motor Company.
Doesnât that count as being car-related?
;-))
yâall remember the page 2 bit about the Lincoln Navigator radio ?
Well, guess who just showed up to pay his part of the bill ? ( 5:32 mdt )
Yep, Johnâs Used Cars As I hoped, the customer todl him their end of the deal was not finishedâŠthat it was in our shop for other things andâŠwe could just slap it all together is minutes and be done with it.
BINGO
Done and out the door.
@TwinTurboâ , I donât disagree with you, but I think weâre talking about the same thing, just in a different fashion. You started saving early, but itâs not the saving that got you where you are, itâs what you did with that saving. Bravo for paying off a house in 7 years, but thatâs not saving. Thatâs spending, quite a bit I imagine. Itâs just spending wisely. Others may have paid rent for those 7 years, getting nothing in return for their money other than a roof over their heads. But you got a house, which in turn as your family grew you were able to sell and trade up for a bigger, better house. And continue building wealth. Money in the bank isnât worth anything unless you use it to your advantage, to make more money.
I also think itâs impossible for a young guy starting out today to achieve what you did without a whole lot of help. With an average home in a decent neighborhood costing about $250,000, how old would you have to be or what kind of life would you have in order to pay that off in 7 years?
As for cars, the same thing may apply. Some people canât wait until they are 40 to buy a new car. Back in the early 60âs my dad had to take on a car payment. He found a job that required lots of driving and his used car experiences were less than stellar. He figured that a car payment was a known manageable quantity, but an unreliable car and the associated lost pay was too unpredictable to manage.
And to return to the original subject, there seems to be no shortage of poor decision making today either.
First was an on-again/off-again customer dropping off his 2003 Odyssey for an oil change, brake noise, and maintenance tune. He also requested we check his van over for anything that may cause problems on the trip to South Dakota heâs making next month. As I look at the car history I tell him that unless someone else has done it the car is already 30,000 miles overdue for timing belt service. His answer? âYeah, thatâs gonna have to wait until after the vacation. Canât afford it now.â
Next was a well-known good customer with an overheating problem. Car needs an intake manifold, total cost close to $700. âWell, our next payday is the 20th. Can we leave the car there and pick it up after the 20th? Weâll just struggle to get by with one car until then.â Why struggle with one car? Fix it today, put it on the credit card, pay it off when the bill comes. Sounds simple to me. I know this family is in decent financial condition and has credit cards available. Why not use the credit to your advantage?
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Television, radio and the internet are constantly ringing the bells of people with poor money management habits who feel compelled to have instant gratification. Our automobile market is based on selling the public more than they can afford through long term financing. The liquidity in the banking system that makes financing so easy is the Fedâs pouring $billions into investment banks each month. Janet Yellen may be the sacrificial lamb for the Fed and the Treasury. We may be at the outer limits of pouring money into the economy to prop up the banks and pump up the markets. And when interest rates increase on the national debt what will Ms Yellen do? Politicians will certainly be glad to have her to throw rocks at.
Yeah I dunno. You have to have a little fun and reward too in this life. I remember I hired a girl just a few years out of school with an economics master. She had been out in the boonies of South Dakota for a couples years and was happy to get back to Minneapolis. She came to me with a Pontiac brochure and wondered if I thought she should by a new one, keep the old one, or trade up for another used one. I said for heavenâs sake you deserve a new one and can afford it. Do it. She did and she really enjoyed it. After a hard 4 to 6 years of work, I have never discouraged anyone from a little reward of a brand new car that no one else has ever driven. After that doesnât matter but everyone should get at least one new car. Maybe not that $800 purse but a new car and a trip to Europe.
I agree @Bing. Whatâs the point of working and saving and being smart with money if you donât reap the rewards of your effort? Is the point to die with a pile of money in the bank?
I had an uncle who, as he once explained to my dad, just didnât âunderstand money.â He figured once you had enough to eat, sleep, clothe yourself, buy a new car every few years and go on vacation once a year the rest was just extra stuff. He was a lifelong bachelor, rented one-bedroom apartments his whole life, and generally lived frugally. He was a quiet, unassuming, gentle man. When he died unexpectedly the family had to sort through his estate and the probate was difficult because he left no will. What we found was shocking. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in bank accounts, just sitting there. Uncashed paychecks from 10 years prior, annuities and mutual funds he bought just because someone told him to but had no idea how to manage. Grandpa died years earlier and had left him a piece of property in Northern CA, which he never even looked into. To him, this was all just âstuffâ, a distraction from his daily routine.
Sad. A professor of foreign languages, so interested and inspired by the history of the world, should have been traveling the world in ease and comfort.
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I agree @Bing. What's the point of working and saving and being smart with money if you don't reap the rewards of your effort? Is the point to die with a pile of money in the bank?
Itâs called BALANCE. No problem rewarding yourself for hard workâŠjust that some people canât afford itâŠand it becomes a problem. They NEVER get out of debt and many times end up bankrupt.
I remember what a chore it used to be back in the 80âs to try to afford a new vehicle,interest rates in the teens,my first vehicle suckered me in @ a 8.88% interest(never got that rate though) back in the âDOCâ [DAYS OF CARTER] INTERST RATES OVER 20%,some bank accounts CDs or whatever paid 8%(some people used to live on that interest(to the exclusion of us poor folks) now the usury isnt so bad and people believe they can afford things(I remember being turned down for credit by Tandy for an overpriced stereo after standing in the store for hours waiting for credit approval),so it goes-Kevin
I remember what a chore it used to be back in the 80's to try to afford a new vehicle,interest rates in the teens,my first vehicle suckered me in @ a 8.88% interes
Bought our first house in the early 80âsâŠ14% interest.
Refinanced our current house a couple years agoâŠ2.5%
@MikeInNHâ, I remember being a kid in SoCal during that time. Seeing a condo development going up and signs advertising 40 year mortgages because that was the only way people could afford to live there. Cousins scrambling to come up with an extra $1000 for a down payment because they could lock in a 12% interest rate but only before the end of the week.
14% interestâŠI wouldnât even pay that on a credit card these days.
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Car loans are down to below 2%.