First Imaginary Car Payment Made
October 16th, 2008 | 7:34 pm | Posted in Finance | 5 Comments »
It was actually late last week that I made my first “fake” car payment, but now I’ve set things up so that on the 15th of each month, I’ll be auto-depositing $400 into my new ING account labeled “Auto”.
So far, I’ve earned 3 cents interest.
Wow!
Exciting stuff!
I’m on my way…
But multiplying a $400 payment by 12 only adds up to $4800/year.
It’s funny how a monthly payment of $400 feels like a lot to come up with, but $4800 over the span of a year doesn’t feel like very much at all.
They’re exactly the same, but they certainly don’t seem that way. To me.
And considering that a typical 4-door car considered inexpensive still costs between $15-$20k, it would take me 3-4 years to finance a future car purchase myself.
I can imagine my current car lasting another 3-4 years, but I’m not going to count on it either. You never know when it’s going to decide to stop running…
And that has me thinking… Should I increase the fake car payment?
Or, maybe, since it will take my 3-4 years to save up for my next car, what’s the difference in just financing much of it like I have in the past?
Either way, both scenarios come attached with 3-4 years worth of monthly payments…
Hmm…
October 16th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I’ve never paid for an imaginary car.
October 16th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
I don’t judge when I make the list. lol. I post up any and all freebies. Assuming that they are not porn.
And yeah most of them are crap, but every now and then a good one comes along. Like the free Cappuccino at Barnes & Noble coupon. Bonus!
and p.s. I have been toying with the idea of keeping my car loan payment amount even after the car is paid off and just have it go to a savings account. Basically what you are doing now. How in the world do you have that kind of self discipline? I would be constantly tempted to lower the amount and use it for something else.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:34 am
“I’ve never paid for an imaginary car.”
You might want to try — it makes buying a real one a lot easier…
October 17th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I’ve been doing this for a few months as well, but I’m anticipating that I’ll have a hard time parting with all that money in one shot. We’ll see…
October 19th, 2008 at 9:46 am
[...] days into my plan of making car payments to myself, and feeling pretty good about it too, commenter Cath recently mentioned that, though she’s [...]