I don' t know what my financial goals are

[cschin4]

Here are some of my goals:

Money in the bank, no debt and the ability to survive a severe downturn. I don't want to spend my life slaving for the "man". If you have money available and saved, you have choices. If not, you don't.
I paid off my home and I use my cc but it is fully paid at the end of each month otherwise I woudn't use it.
Cash for cars? I did that once and it seems foolish to me unless you are buying a really cheap car. I see nothing wrong with financing a car for a few years at a very low interest rate and having that money available for other things. I think it makes much MORE sense, IMHO, to have car loans but to prepay one's mortgage and throw as much as you can at the mortgage principle. We did that and our home is paid off. As I said, I did one cash purchase of our last car and don't see the advantage. Next car will financed as I can do better things with a larger wad of cash.
So, keep you bills paid, no debt, and sock extra away into retirement or college plan. Then, go about enjoying your life and family. And, spend some today and take time today to enjoy your family.

[bjl584]

Here are some of my goals:

Money in the bank, no debt and the ability to survive a severe downturn. I don't want to spend my life slaving for the "man". If you have money available and saved, you have choices. If not, you don't.
I paid off my home and I use my cc but it is fully paid at the end of each month otherwise I woudn't use it.
Cash for cars? I did that once and it seems foolish to me unless you are buying a really cheap car. I see nothing wrong with financing a car for a few years at a very low interest rate and having that money available for other things. I think it makes much MORE sense, IMHO, to have car loans but to prepay one's mortgage and throw as much as you can at the mortgage principle. We did that and our home is paid off. As I said, I did one cash purchase of our last car and don't see the advantage. Next car will financed as I can do better things with a larger wad of cash.
So, keep you bills paid, no debt, and sock extra away into retirement or college plan. Then, go about enjoying your life and family. And, spend some today and take time today to enjoy your family.

I see where you are coming from, but I think it depends on one's personal situation. For someone such as yourself it does make sense to finance your vehicles, but for someone that still has a mortgage, or for someone that has a lot of cc debt, it may make more financial sense to pay cash for the car. Especially for someone that is just starting out trying to get their finances in order after several years of reckless spending, adding more debt to the problem in the form of an auto loan probably isn't going to help their situation.

[cschin4]

someone that still has a mortgage

My point is to put all the extra on the mortgage. And, the earlier you are in the term of the loan, the bigger bang for your buck. I cannont understand why anyone would want to pay 2x the actual purchase price of their home. When I bought my home with a $130K mortgage, I looked at the amortization tables and realized I would be paying over $100K in interest even at a fairly decent interest rate. The vast majority of early payments are interest and very little goes to principal. So, we diligently put as much extra as we could each month and paid off our home in 7 yrs. Not too shabby. Spending the $20K cash for a car made little sense when we could finance the car at 4%. Instead, we put that cash onto the mortgage. Of course, there are going to be those who tell me what money I "lost" by not keeping my mortgage, investing, etc. But, look at how you really live. If you really are going to invest the difference then fine. But, if you are busy with life, kids, work and aren't going to, then investing in paying off your home is a great investment as well.