Layout:
Home > A glimpse

A glimpse

March 3rd, 2015 at 09:10 pm

Any of us who have spent very much time in the SA forums have seen the back end results of someone over-extending themselves on a new car purchase and loan. Today I got a glimpse at the front end.

I have a cousin. He is very different from me in many ways. He is married. Some things I can tell you about him and his wife include:

He has declared bankruptcy at least once. I'm pretty sure he has declared bankruptcy at least one other time.

Before they were married, his wife lost a house in foreclosure. His dad pulled a little switcheroo where he bought the house after foreclosure, for a very reduced price, and sold the house back to them on a land contract. I'm pretty sure they're behind in paying dad back.

Between the two of them, they have five kids at home, and one out of the house.

Today, in just the last hour or so, his wife posted the following on FB, that my cousin bought her (her words) a 2015 Mazda 3 s Grand Touring. I looked. The base price for the car is $28,385. I've never owned a brand new car in my life.

Apparently the car she had been driving had no heat. I don't begrudge her having a car with heat. It's just that you can but lots of cars for well less than half that that are very reliable, and have heat.

I also don't want to make it sound as if I'm Mr. Financial Perfect. Obviously I've made financial mistakes in the past. Clearly I continue to stumble. But, I try to learn from my mistakes. I like financial security. I don't even know what I'd do with a 28K car. I doubt I could pay the insurance.

I've been shaking my head at my cousin for years. And, I really shouldn't give two toots how he spends his money. It's just that I know how this story is going to end, and it's not going to be good.

In the past hour, 61 people have "liked" her post, and 26 people have commented on it, all congratulatory in some form.

I won't "like" it, and I'll keep my comments to myself (and the SA community) (and my wife, later).

Good Grief!

7 Responses to “A glimpse”

  1. rob62521 Says:
    1425417259

    Hey, its cool to get a new car so their friends liked the post probably because they were jealous of the car. Sometimes I think people do stuff just so they can post it on Facebook. One person airs everything, or just about everything on FB. I don't think you are being overly critical, especially knowing what you know. Just be glad you know better.

  2. MonkeyMama Says:
    1425418868

    I think car purchases are the #1 financial downfall for most.

  3. creditcardfree Says:
    1425425901

    It is hard to watch others make big financial mistakes.

  4. Buendia Says:
    1425427104

    I find it frustrating, too. I continue to drive my inexpensive car with its scratches and dings and a fuel gauge that is broken, and my friends who declared bankruptcy have a two brand-new cars (which they bought not long before the bankruptcy). One was purchased because the wife has to have leather seats. But I sure wouldn't trade our financial security for their cars!

  5. scfr Says:
    1425432492

    Isn't it nice to have a safe place like SA where we can "vent" about these things? Good for you for declining to "like" the new car post.

  6. snafu Says:
    1425457444

    I find it amazing that people like your cousin always find someone who bails them out. Dad placed them back in their house and life carried on. Bankruptcy 1, Bankruptcy II, all those creditors remain unpaid but do you wonder what interest rate and fees were added to the $ 28,385. base price?

  7. VS_ozgirl Says:
    1425521336

    I think only half the time do people truly need new cars and society does not educate people to realise that a car is generally your second most expensive asset and you should plan for it accordingly. People think they "have" to get a car loan a lot of the time which is generally high interest when the reality is, they don't. If they saved for the car before buying instead of paying interest they would be "paid" interest. And then instead of finding out what the repayments will be, they can choose what their saving amount would be. Of course society would not promote this because it would be detrimental to business. To me it's just mind-boggling! A person does not have much money to buy their second-most expensive asset but yet because they fail to plan properly let's just add an interest expense onto the asset to really hinder their chances of getting ahead financially? Yet people do it all the time. (Ps I personally don't care about cars. My car we got 18 months old 10 years ago and while we got a loan we traded in two cars for a third of the car value so we didn't need a bigger loan. It's paid off, runs fine and as we have little savings and not so little credit card debt, a new car is not on the horizon any time soon)

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]