Cars!!!!

My hubby and I are just about to pay off our first car.  I have never had a car loan until we bought our BEAUTIFUL 2005 Toyota 4-Runner.  Dont get me wrong this car is SO amazing and wonderful.... HOWEVER it is still JUST a car.
(all of the photos for this post were taken from a simple google images search)

In my married life the cars we have had are the following
-1999 Chevy Malibu : My honey had this when we got married and he had bought it for CASH from his brother.


-1989 Ford Escort: This was a wonderful gift from my husbands maternal grandmother.  She was so kind to give it to us, we needed another car so that both hubby and I could get to work.


When the ford died, we decided we needed a Bigger car.  We go camping ALOT and we wanted something that would hold all our stuff and on occasion pull a flat bed trailer (that my in-laws own).  We looked at alot of different options.  I still wasn't keen on getting a car loan, however I thought it was the best option.  I gave my hubby a budget of $12,000 and asked him to find us something.  I really was excited, however the make and model were indifferent to me.  Chris found us a beautiful USED 4-runner, in my allocated amount.

-2005 Toyota 4-Runner: Our first car with a loan on it as a couple.


I then drove the chevy until it died, and we sold it for a grand total of $500 :)

-1999 Honda Civic:  I wanted to get a car that we could pay cash for.  I gave myself a budget of $3,000.  I really wanted an automatic, however they are on average $1,000 more then manual, so I changed.  I really wanted either a Honda or a Toyota because they have a good track record, and after the problems we had with both our chevy and ford, I didn't want to go that route again.   We did not have enough cash to buy it so we worked with my parents to do a short 6 month loan until we could pay it all off to them.  It was much better then trying to work with a bank and my parents were so wonderful to allow us to do this.


OK so now, here we are.  we have our 2 WORKING cars.  One nice and fancy, a great road trip car, and gets pretty good gas milage.  and my wonderful little commuter car.
As we have told friends and family that we will soon OWN it.  Outright, we keep getting asked, so what are you going to get next......

This makes ms question alittle.... and even more then that I got to the chapter of my book "You aren't what you drive."  It discusses alot about how millionaires purchase cars.  To me a car is not important.  It doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to spoil my wonderful husband with a fancy truck, it is not something I want right now.

Dave Ramsey stated this
"Thinking about buying a new car?

Try this instead: Take your current car out for a drive, open the window, and repeatedly throw $100 bills out the window. Now that sounds dumb, doesn’t it? But when you buy a new car, you’re doing the same thing the moment you take it off the lot."

I plan to NEVER have another car payment EVER again.  

My hubby does want a beautiful Toyota Tundra one day,   One like this :)  ooooo so pretty.

ONE DAY
 

However, when that day comes, I plan to walk up to the CURRENT owner (I never plan to buy a new car) be able to hand them the cash for the car and keep the title in my wonderful filing cabinet! 

I feel that one of the BIGGEST budget breakers in todays world is Cars.  Plain old simple cars that loose all their value!!

And for the record.  I am VERY hard on cars, which is ONE of the reasons I TOTALLY LOVE my little car! Her name is "My girl" and I love her!! :) ... even more now that her bumper is attached, however that is a discussion for another day!