- Joined
- Feb 21, 2020
- Threads
- 112
- Messages
- 7,301
- Reaction score
- 25,622
- Location
- North Texas
- Vehicle(s)
- SUV
- Your Bronco Model
- Undecided
A vehicle is not an investment nor is the stock market for short term savings or casino gambling. Any money in the market should be considered unusable for a minimum of two years. Any expenses within that two years should come from savings or income. Those of us who are old enough to have lived through multiple market downturns are not concerned, our investments are positioned to weather these storms.It was money I am willing to pull out of investments to invest in a Bronco. But, when the market is down it does not make sense to pull out to buy a car.
I have a completely separate savings account.
Regardless, don't let the desire for a new shiny toy override your sound financial future, house fund, emergency fund, 401K, kids college fund, etc. You should ask yourself, do you want a couple of years of a cool ride or a stronger financial future?
The future quality of life for you, your family and your children is based on the choices you make early in life. Save vs Toys, the choice is yours, if you are able to afford both, excellent, enjoy. And don't tell me YOLO is the answer, "You only live once" to make smart financial decisions early in life that will affect the rest of your life.
What is the trajectory of your financial life? In this first example below, a 25 year old started saving $500 per month, by retirement age they will have $1.52M with an average stock market return of 7% (with the money sitting is a broad based market ETF, such as VTI, https://investor.vanguard.com/etf/profile/VTI).
The second person waited until age 35 to start saving for retirement with the same inflation reduced $500 per month. Due to this later start at serious, responsible, savings, the second person will only have half as much as the smart 25 year old, $714K, with an average stock market return of 7%, that is $807K less. Now how many cups of coffee is that?
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