Sense to Save

Lose your job? Return your car (??)

I saw a commercial from the folks at Hyundai advertising a deal where you can return your car if you’re facing financial hardship. According to their website, if you buy or lease a new Hyundai and lose your income or license, become physically disabled, die, or a few other things,you can give your car back to the dealership and they’ll pay up to $7,500 in negative equity (you’ll pay the difference). It only counts for the first year of having your car.

Interesting!

They’re acknowledging that with your purchase of a new car, you’ll likely have negative equity in it right away. If you were to try to privately sell your car in that first year, you probably wouldn’t get enough money for it to repay your loan. If your car has depreciated more than $7,500, you’d be responsible for the difference.

And, they’re acknowledging that if you lose your income, having a car payment is going to make your life a lot more difficult. It’s easier to not have a car payment during those times.

But, if you lost your job and had to return your car, then you’ll be jobless and without personal transportation. That might make getting a new job that much harder.

Instead of buying a brand-new car and not being certain you’d be able to pay for it, why not buy a cheaper car? Not everyone can pay cash for a car — even a $1,000 model. But, taking out a loan for just a few thousand dollars is going to be much easier to quickly repay than borrowing $20k for a car.

P.S., I really intended to blog more this week! I’ve just been so wiped out with my baby lately, that all we do is eat and sleep. Thanks for subscribing to my blog to see when I do update, and thanks for your patience!

Why we want to be out of debt

“Lieutenant Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company. So then I got a call from him, saying we don’t have to worry about money no more. And I said, that’s good! One less thing”. – Forrest Gump

Being out of debt will certainly be one welcome less thing to worry about. I can’t say that I really worry about money (or much of anything) since worrying doesn’t do any good. But, not having debt to factor into our budget has got to be a great thing.

Sometimes, I get so caught up with wanting to be out of debt that I start to forget why it’s important to me. Here’s some reasons.

• I don’t want to owe anyone — including my bank — any money. Owe nothing but love, ya know?
• The money has to be repaid eventually, so I might as well pay it as fast as possible to be done with it and to minimize the amount of interest we pay.
• Once we have our last debt paid, it will be like getting a tax-free raise. That minimum payment takes up a good portion of our monthly spending, and when that’s out of here, we’ll be able to free up that money for something else.
• Living will cost less.
• We’ll be living within our means.
• The lower our expenses, the easier it will be on us if we lost our income.
• We’ll have more money to do the things we want, such as saving for retirement, saving for our son’s college, saving for a down payment on a house, vacations, and other fun things. Anything has to be more fun than paying interest!

What are your reasons?

My post was inspired by Mrs Micah

What are good deals at Sam’s Club?

There’s a pretty good promotion going on at Sam’s Club for new members: Pay the $40/year membership fee to join, and they’ll give you a $25 store gift card. (Heard about this from Common Sense with Money). This offer is good today through the 21st.

I live less than 10 minutes from a Sam’s Club, so I do think I’d be able to use my membership on a regular basis, if I wanted.

I want to hear from you first, though.

What are the best deals at Sam’s?

The one time I went with my mother-in-law, I wasn’t hugely impressed with the prices on some things. I knew that I could get things cheaper at the drugstores or at Aldi. But surely there are some deals to be had there, yes?

I don’t have a need for gallon-sized cans of corn, but I know they have ‘value packs’ of say, 8 cans of regular-sized corn bundled together. So hopefully, things I buy there won’t go to waste.

Also, I like the idea of the “click n’ pull” service. I can fill my shopping cart online, and my order will be ready by the time I get to the store. This will be really handy with an infant in tow!

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.