$700 monthly new car payment now costs as much as one semester of room and board at college

Mustang, Gt, Red, Usa, Car, Auto

Sheer driving pleasure. – BMW slogan

The automakers at BMW has been using this slogan since 1973 and it is featured on all advertising for BMW automobiles and motorcycles.

Their tagline explicitly uses the word pleasure to describe driving. And if you want that pleasure its’s going to cost you, at a premium.

New cars are now averaging $700 per month.

The University of Maryland College Park (UMD) has an annual Room and Board that is about this cost of $700 per month for that new car: Room (Standard 2-person w/AC, includes Telecom fee) $8,860.

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For some perspective, keep in mind that $700 times 12 months = $8,400.

A mere $260 more will keep you housed and fed on a university campus at the UMD, which is considered a Public Ivy, for an entire year.

Penn State and other public and private colleges are even higher.

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When looking at these new car prices, you may see why some Facebook engineers chose to live in their cars rather than pay $3,000 rent on top of that car payment.

Most folks just do not have $3,000 per month to shell out on just rent and car payments, let alone $3,700.

I spill all the tea on my new car story here.

Therefore, before you decide to start writing that check out for $700 every month, I want you to stop and consider this. Gas prices are topping $3 per gallon. Insurance keeps on moving on up like The Jefferson’s!

Expenses for the average joe in the middles class keeps on going higher and seems never ending.

Instead of paying $8,400 a year to floss in a new BMW, you can invest that money instead.

Let’s say the car payment will last you seven years. During that time if you put that money into stocks you could have a nice head start on your retirement savings. That sounds real good considering the average portfolio is worth about $30,000 for folks under 30.

Please also take note that I said to invest in stocks and not cryptocurrency. No Dogecoin, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether or Binance USD. After the FTX bankruptcy, no one can call these investments safe.

A great story on the FTX fallout was written on White Coat Investor and can be read at this link. Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) net worth peaked at $26 billion and then sank to $100,000. This fallout was one of the worst destroyers of wealth in all of human history.

Nevertheless, I digress.

Going back to the new car payment being invested instead, over a seven-year period with a rate of return (ROI) of 10%, you could have $87,661 in your 401(k).

Please note that the ROI of 10% is doable as that is what the stock market has averaged. The historical average yearly return of the S&P 500 is 10.356% over the last 100 years, as of end of November 2022. This assumes dividends are reinvested.

If you decide not to invest another penny, over 26 years, you would have 1,044,764. Not buying a new car can literally make you a millionaire.

Maybe that is why Jim Cramer decided to keep investing in stocks even though he couldn’t afford rent and had to live in his car. He knew what it could mean for his future. By the age of 45, he had amassed a $1.5 million dollar nest egg in his brokerage accounts.

Remember those people on Pimp my ride from the MTV show. Wonder if they still even have those cars from back in 2008.

With all the money they spent on custom rims and tricked out this and that, if even one car was repossessed, it was all for naught! #*k cars!!

YARN | It's gone, man. Gone. | The Sandlot (1993) | Video gifs by quotes |  b8fa0daa | 紗

Buy the product. Own the business. Get the stock. Let those dividends pay for your future car with cold hard cash.

Take a lesson straight out of South Park’s playbook.

South-Park-Gifs — for marissa-mars
South-Park-Gifs — for marissa-mars

However, instead of foreign stocks, I prefer to just stick with domestic, as most companies are international and provide you with global exposure.

You just have to decide which one you want more: a new car or financial freedom sooner rather than later.

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IRS debt balloons to $1.7 Million for R&B Superstar

Always pay your taxes. – Felix Dennis, British publishing entrepreneur

Former British publishing magnate, Felix Dennis, states the above-mentioned quote.

At the time of his death, he was estimated to be worth over $100 million dollars. He wrote these words in his 2006 book How to get rich. He said there is no getting around paying taxes and that if you try it is likely to lead to severe economic problems and consequences.

Put simply; pay the taxman.

You can read more of his advice on my blog here.

That being said, let us jump right in to the topic at hand. It was recently reported that R&B singer, Montell Jordan, famous for the 1995 hit “This Is How We Do It,” owed the IRS $1.7 million in back taxes.

Surprising because the song ruled the airwaves and was No 1 on the Billboard charts. Fast forward to some years later and we find out that an $11,000 tax debt that went unpaid ballooned to almost $2 million dollars. WTF!!!

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Please understand my surprise and literal shock upon hearing this as this song is still played in film and on television today. He should be raking in millions in royalties from this song alone. However, it is not the case.

He sadly had to sell his publishing rights to pay his tax debt. He immediately signed the $600,000 check over the the IRS and had to file for bankruptcy. Apparently, an accountant did not pay his $11k in taxes due one year and he was being charged 11% per day by the IRS until it hit $1.7 million.

On a personal note, I make sure to review all my tax documents, file them myself, and make sure to pay every penny owed to the feds. I do not ever put my fate in someone else’s hands.

This is not how we financially do it!

I cannot stress this enough. You are in charge of your money. Period. Do not ever let anything pass by you that you do not read when it comes to your finances.

No one cares about your money more than you.

Elected officials sleeping on couches while pulling down a salary of $174,000

Office, Sitting Room, Executive

Greetings to all you wealth-building enthusiasts out there!

We are in the homestretch of the New Year.

New Year’s Eve 2022 is a mere two days away.

Let your 2023 resolutions start to take shape and begin shortly. However, let us have a few moments of reflection over the last year shall we.

A recently elected Congressman, Maxwell Alejandro Frost, had a rent application rejected weeks ahead of being sworn in. He is unable to afford an apartment in Washington DC, as the median rent is $2,395, due to his bad credit.

Frost had to quit his job to be a full-time candidate. Seven days a week, 10-12 hours a day. He is couch surfing with friends until he can again have access to a livable wage after driving for Uber did not leave him enough to pay all of his bills. Thus, the reason for his bad credit.

He is far from alone in this situation. In 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) couldn’t find an apartment in DC. She didn’t have the money.

At the height of COVID, more than 100 members of Congress are sleeping in their taxpayer-funded Congressional offices in 2020.

Let us provide some context here.

While rank and file members of the U.S. Congress make a decent salary ($174,000 a year), they don’t receive a per diem. Meaning they have to pay for everything out of their own pockets while some, other members do receive a per diem that can be used for housing. If you think this is unfair or strange, consider that for most of the period between 1789 and 1855, the only compensation senators and representatives received was a $6 per diem.

The fact that housing has become so unaffordable is just insane. I wrote a blog post about how I used a Roth IRA to buy property. However, not everyone has access to these means. Especially, if you have no retirement accounts to begin with.

Many officials were screaming poverty at the time they were seen working in their offices by day and converting them into bedrooms at night.

When the rent becomes so high that those helping write the laws are sleeping on couches, we need to address the matter of housing affordability.

Why not have communal living spaces? Similar to college dorms. This is far better than sleeping on a cot in your office.

What about building micro apartments? Enough space for a bed, couch, bathroom, small kitchen, and closet in about 500-600 square feet.

There has to be some affordable solutions out there. I had to do some thinking outside the box to start buying property with my Roth. Maybe that is what we need. Some out of the box solutions for long-term housing problems.