| What is your car payment costing you in lost | | | | month car payment turned into an extra investment. |
| opportunities? Even with a $300 a month car payment | | | | If instead of buying that brand new truck or SUV at |
| the numbers can be astounding. This is not like your | | | | $400 a month payment, consider the numbers with |
| average car payment calculator. | | | | that amount. After 20 years of investing $400 instead |
| For the sake of true car payment calculation, lets | | | | of sending it to the car company you would have |
| assume you had a $300 a month car payment and | | | | $404,016.19 and after 30 years that number would be |
| every 2 or 3 years you just kept trading it in for | | | | $1,426,345.37. |
| another car of about the same payment per month. | | | | Plus, you will rack up a huge amount of savings in |
| The upside is that you would always have a brand | | | | cheaper insurance costs. |
| new car every two or three years, but there is a | | | | Imagine a teenager at 18 years old wanting to buy a |
| tremendous downside you have not considered. | | | | new car for college. They want to get one that is fairly |
| What if instead of buying a brand new car, you went | | | | modest with a payment of $250 a month. Consider |
| and bought a cheap $3,000 car with cash and | | | | instead, that the teenager bought a cheap $2,000 car |
| invested the money that you would have made in car | | | | and decided to invest the $250 a month from that |
| payments. | | | | point on. |
| Every two or three years you could simply buy | | | | The teenager never added anything more than $250 a |
| another cheap car with cash so you would never | | | | month up until retirement. Would you guess that by the |
| have a payment again. | | | | time this teenager retires at 65 years old, having only |
| Instead of sending $300 a month to a car payment, | | | | contributed $250 a month, he or she would have |
| you take your $300 a month that you would have | | | | $6,953,778.85. That is a huge nest egg to retire on just |
| used to pay a monthly payment and you place it in a | | | | because they decided early in life to not have a |
| great mutual fund or other investment that grows 12% | | | | payment. |
| a year. | | | | It is amazing how powerful our income truly is. If a |
| If you did this for 20 years you would wind up with | | | | simple $300 a month turns into more than a million |
| $303,012.14 at the end of just 20 years. If you were | | | | dollars over the course of 30 years, how much are all |
| able to do this for 30 years you would have | | | | your monthly debts costing you in lost opportunities? |
| $1,069,759.02. That is well over a million dollars you | | | | You do not have to buy and drive junker cars all your |
| would have for simply not having a payment. No car | | | | life. Simply set money aside a small amount of money |
| payment calculator can show you that. | | | | each month and upgrade every year with cash. You |
| This does not even consider how much other extra | | | | will find yourself driving a decent car within a few |
| money you have invested. This is just a simple $300 a | | | | years. Life truly is better with no car payments. |