My newest vehicle, other than my motorcycle, and project sports car. My daily driver is a 1995 Ford Explorer. I don’t know how many miles it has on it. The odometer doesn’t work. It had 150,000 miles on it when I bought it 3 years ago. I know I average 20 miles a gallon with it. I chase my kids and their kids in sports. I bought the Explorer 3 years ago, and have put about 75,000 miles on it. I paid $1500.00 for it then. I pay the minimum in my state for license. We have an excise tax added to plate cost each year, until the vehicle is X years old or bottoms out on value. I pay only for Liability Insurance. The insured value would be less than I paid for it. I don’t count in the usual expected expenses for maintenance. Tires, Oil Change, etc. These things come whether you have a new car or old. I was fortunate that that the Explorer had been taken care of and had no rust, or excessive wear on the interior. I subscribe to these beliefs as far as vehicles are concerned. A vehicle is to get me from point A to point B. Do I need a new car for this? NO! If I were to buy a new car, (and I have had a couple. Three to be Exact. the last one I had one year, before I got laid off, seems my vehicle had already lost 50% of what I paid for it. I was able to keep it with the help of my brother. Do I want to take that kind of loss again. No way. If I were to buy a new vehicle payments would run, probably between $250-$350 a month. that would be a minimum of $3,000.00 a year in payments. for about 5 or 6 years. So I figure if I can keep my Explorer on the road for $2000.00 a year I am ahead of the game. Knock on wood I have had to spend $0, beyond the usual maintenance costs for the these 3 years. So at $500 a year ($1500 divided by 3 years equals $500 a year). Well as you can see I have thus far save $2500.00 a year on payments alone. That is $7,500.00 I have saved. I know most of you think you have to have a new car for appearance sake, or mistakenly think you will spend more for maintenance. Think of it this way If you had an older vehicle YOU would still have put more money in your pocket. I had a cousin who only bought a new car every ten years. But he could afford it. By buying only every ten years he was able to pay cash. Pretending to make payments.(putting the money aside), he was able to take his family on many fulfilled vacations with the extra money. Why Buy a New Car when an Older one is just as good at getting you from Point A to Point B, at a huge savings. That Is How I See It, Views: 313
Tag: Saving Money
Price Checking
During this month of holiday spending I am compelled to pass on some tricks (?) I have found while shopping. Sometimes it is a little amount of money saved sometimes a substantial amount. I will go back several years for my first example. When computer scanners first came out I HAD to have one. I went to a now defunct electronics store, which was a leader in it’s time. The particular scanner I was interested in had a price tag of $269.99. Being close to Black Friday, the clerk told me that he had knowledge this scanner was to be specially priced for the event. It would be an all day event and they had plenty in stock. I waited for the sale, hoping to save a substantial amount of money. Well, was I surprised to find the special price was now $349.99. That was an $80.00 increase in price. I talked to the same clerk. He said he was surprised at the rise in cost, but they sold more that day than they had in a month. People who had not pre-shopped thought it was a steal. So it doesn’t hurt to pre-shop items you may be interested in. More recently I was grocery shopping, We all know to buy the large economy size right? Imagine my surprise when I discovered that by buying the two smaller size bottle; of pancake syrup I was actually paying less for 4 more ounces. I suppose that in this case economy. meant more money for the store. This Monday I needed ink for my printer, usually I buy the combo pack of 1 black and 1 color cartridge. The price was $27.97, not a bad price for 2 cartridges, am I correct. However when I priced them individually. The Black Cartridge was $9.97 each. The Color Cartridge price was $17.97 Add $9.97 to $17.97 the cost is $27.94. Granted I only saved 3 cents by buying them separately over the combo pack. But I usually buy 2 combo packs a month. I Use a lot of ink. That means I save 6 cents a month. Which means 72 cents a year. Yeah I know that doesn’t sound like much, does it. But look at the bottom line for the store. The store in question is one of almost 8,700. I don’t know how many of these combo packs each store sell weekly. Let’s assume (Yes I Know what assume is said to mean), HaHa. But for this example lets make this assumption. At 3 cents each package, time 10 a week that is only 30 cents extra profit. But take that 30 cents times 8,700. That totals to $2610.00 a week. Now take that $2610.00 time 52 weeks and that 3 cent difference comes up to $135,720.00. Not bad extra profit over the profit made on individual packages. Sort of a BONUS profit So in conclusion COMPARE Prices. That Is How I See It. PS. When shopping online beware of the Shipping and handling costs. One ebay for example I add the shipping charge to what the price is and quite often I can buy the item in a local store for less money. Some places charge more shipping and handling than the actual item would cost in the store. As always Buyer Beware. Views: 128
