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Financial measurements

February 22nd, 2007 at 01:47 pm

You can measure financial success many different ways.

1) No debt
2) Amount of discretionary Income
3) Savings/ Retirement goal
4) Pay off Mortgage
5) Net worth
6) The number of people which ask you for money.

My personal measure of financial success is to pay for a new car in cash.

My intermediate steps to accomplish this is simple. Each time we buy a new car, we finance it for one year less than we did before.

In 1995 I bought a new Saturn SC2 for 66 months of financing.
In 2000 we bought a new Ford Focus. 4 years of financing.

In 2006 we bought two new cars on the same day (Honda Ridgeline and Honda Accord). We cheated- one car was financed for 4 years and one financed for 3 years. When the cars are paid off the money budgeted for the payment is going to accumulate in the savings account until we need our next car (6 years later).


The next car is a two year payment plan. Bank the payment years 3-10.

The car after that is a one year financing. Bank payment years 2-10.

The next car will be paid in CASH!

Posted in Spending | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Financial measurements”

  1. daylily Says:
    February 22nd, 2007 at 07:15 pm

    I am really hoping that for the next car that we purchase, we will be able to pay at least 75% cash.

  2. Lux Living Frugalis Says:
    February 23rd, 2007 at 05:29 am

    Jim - it's definitely doable - we bought two on the same day last year, paying cash! A first for us paying for any car w/cash, much less two!

    Good luck, that's a great plan!

  3. monkeymama Says:
    February 23rd, 2007 at 07:38 pm

    Good point indeed. We have always paid cash, but don't find that a great measure because we usually pay little. But I see what you are saying. We now have 2 relatively new cars, 1 paid cash, other paid off within the first year (having a loan only because it is way lower than the interest we are earning on the cash anyway). & that does feel good. I do think next time we can pay $20k+ cash for both cars though and that will be nice.

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