Warning: This is a rant about car loans. My sister Jackie has been told her whole life that having a car loan is a normal and acceptable. This video is me telling her it’s not OK to make car payments if you don’t have the money in the bank to pay cash for the car.
UPDATE: Jackie accepted the challenge! Mission accomplished. More to come.
UPDATE 2: Our friend Jim Collins liked this video so much he included it in his own MANIFESTO!! What an honor, thank you Jim. Check it out: https://jlcollinsnh.com/manifesto
Disclaimer: I don’t mean car payments are never an option. If you have the cash to pay for a car and choose to invest it somewhere else that’s fine.
Here’s a video by Dave Ramsey that explains the “pay yourself car payments” a little more clearly:
All the cool kids are drinking Moscow Mules. But they?re supposed to be served in copper cups, which are expensive. Here?s how to make your own DIY copper cups with nothing more than 3/4 inch copper pipe. You can buy all of the materials for about $3 per cup from the hardware store, or find scrap metal and make them cheap or free.
I?ve never done any sort of copper or sheet metal fabrication so this is about what you can expect if you?re a beginner. Overall I?m happy with the results. The hardest part was learning to solder or ?sweat? the parts together.
Our Moscow Mule recipe is 2oz vodka and 4oz ginger beer. These cups ended up about 7 ounces which are perfect.
Recommended Video – Vintage Knife Blade Light Switch
Looking for the ultimate car buying guide? This probably isn’t it. This is just our opinion about the best used car you can buy and how much you should pay for it. Are all dealers scams? What about the craigslist killer?
We quickly review consumer report’s most reliable cars and then talk about where to buy one. We include 4 tips and tricks for buying a used car from a dealer without getting ripped off.
BONUS INFO:
We want to start adding more information about each video in our blog posts, so this video will be our first attempt at that.
Are the best deals really on craigslist? Something that didn’t make the video was the fact that I actually have my dealers license in the state of Florida. We got it when we were buying and selling motorcycles last year, but never used it for cars. But, it did give me access to the auctions that all the car dealers buy their cars from. And I actually bought Lauren a Honda Insight when we got back from Europe to see what the process was like.
You can imagine the excitement and chaos on the auction floor as 5 rows with hundreds of cars crept through the building all at once. Each lane had an auctioneer just like you hear on TV, all competing with each other over the loudspeaker.
To my disappointment, all of the cars were being sold for just about exactly their KBB trade in value. Not only that, but most of the cars “sent to auction” were the junkers that dealers had a hard time selling on their lot.
Fortunately, the auction I went to had a “lane” for off-lease Hondas. They were mostly late model civics and accords in excellent shape. We paid $12,000 for our Insight, and then an additional “fee” of $475 on top of it. The trade in value was $12,000. I went inside and paid cash on the spot.
Lauren drove the car for a few months and then we sold it for $12,000 and bought the Prius for $6,000 off craigslist. Comparing those 2 cars, it’s easy to see which was the better deal. At the auction we spent $475 over trade-in, on craigslist we spent $3,000 UNDER trade-in value.
Yes it’s convenient to have a stream of hundreds of cars all in one place for you to choose from. But, if I couldn’t beat a craigslist deal at a dealer auction, there’s no way you’ll beat it once a dealer tacks on all the profit and fees.
About a year ago we bought two baby Nubian goats. We made a video called Urban Goats in the Backyard, and said that if you’re thinking about goats you should get them.
We’re sad to say, one year later ours are going to a new home. We’ve been traveling too much to consider finding a buck to get them pregnant and a friend has been looking for nubian goats.
In exchange for our goats, he is going to provide us with goat milk and cheese. So it’s a win-win situation. Except… The goats have become our pets.
We had a hard time giving them up, but it was for the best.
It’s been one year since making plans for extreme early retirement. How are we doing? In short, we’re falling behind for the first time this month. But don’t worry, there’s a reason.
We decided to simplify our lives and focus our efforts on our jobs and making YouTube videos. Unfortunately that meant making some tough decisions.
Watch the video to see how far behind we are, and how we plan to get back on top!
