And you wonder why you are poor? Let me guess, you sell your car and buy a new one every two years.
Another billion-dollar company bailing on California
- Thread starter T. A. Gardner
- Start date
I wonder that a lot but I did save a dollar or two by doing the direct opposite when you lost all your money giving us S&P advice. That will easily cover my response below.
Usually, I buy a one-year-old demo or a lease return. The next will be a 2026 BMW X3 M50.
Imagine a young person comes to you and asks whether leasing a car at $20k a year makes sense. The other alternative is he can put $20k a year into an investment fund that gets 10% returns for 50 years, and have $23m. If he can get 20% returns, it would be $909 million. At the higher of those numbers, a private plane starts seeming reasonable.
These numbers are not impossible.
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
Leasing the car might make sense, but it would require knowing more about this person's overall situation than you give. For example, if leasing that car is a necessity for working and making a living beyond paying for the car, it likely would make sense. If the car was a business expense and could be written off taxes, it might make sense.
Getting 20% return on something steadily for decades isn't going to happen very often, if at all. Even steady 10% is not readily doable much of the time.
Wally, you will be dead a very long time, and I have never seen a hearse towing a safe full of money.
I love watching you skinflints penny pinch your way through life.
At the end of the game, the pawn and the king go into the same box.
The IRS has been cracking down on that for decades.
I know plenty of people who have gotten an average of 20% returns for decades. That is especially true with businesses where you are adding your own effort. Many family members have done about that with real estate.
Now if you add in the "steady" then it starts being hard, but why would I care about "steady"? Over 50 years of an average of 10% after inflation, fees, and taxes, and I am happy. Some of those years might be losing 50%, but others would be gaining 30%. It can be upsetting, but it certainly is rewarding.
Risk should definitely be managed, but it should not be, and can not be, avoided.
I am there as far as having enough money to have a comfortable retirement, so not dead for a long time. Either that or I am a ghost.