I wouldn't say I'm in the exact same boat but I just had a kid 5 months ago and it's definately changing the way I think about things. Been thinking really hard about getting out of hotrods for a while and catch up. I'm a firm believer that "credit" is the root of all evil and the cc debt will be the first to go if I do. I'm not broke, have some extra money but feel like I should definately have more. We do have nice cars but I've tried the cheap route and felt like I was constantly fixing or maintaining and it seems easier to accept that I will always have a car and house payment. My family will always come first over the hotrod with no exceptions. If I have to get out for a while to enjoy them (let's face it, the hotrod's probably going to sit for a while anyway with more kids in the future), no biggie. There will always be other opportunities to own hotrods. Mootz
I just helped my nephew sort out his finances and here is what I found. 1. Too much FITW (tax withheld from paycheck). Getting a tax refund is nice, but that money is usually spent frivolously..plus why give Uncle Sam an interest free loan? Also...he has been engaged for a couple of years and they live together. I showed him how much money they were needlessly paying in income taxes by not making it legal. 2. He was running high octane gas in a car designed to run on regular. Someone at work (hospital) told him he would save money in the long haul. Along these lines, I asked him to try to pay at the pump instead of going inside the convenience store. Every time he went inside, he was impulse buying something. 3. He didn't realize how much money he was spending at Blockbuster, Starbucks, Burger King, and Dominos. 4. Him and his fiance both smoke. I didn't make any progress there, but DAMN! That **** is expensive.
I worked 3 jobs and had no family to get what I have. Others I see working 1 job with a family have more. Guess I was working too cheap.
People wonder why I drive a $200.00 POS minivan.....I have had it 4 years now and spent maybe another $200.00 in maintainence in the 4 years. Need new tires? Buy another $50.00 van,take the tires and sell the rest for $100.00 To hell with car payments!
One nice thing about our hobby is that we have the ability to have daily cars that we can drive at very low cost, or for free. If you can build a hot rod, you also can rebuild a salvage vehicle as a daily driver. Just chose something that will retain its value and that needs labor more than parts. Over the years, the family cars have been a series of vehicles that were purchased cheaply as wrecks or stripped. I fixed them up, drove them, and eventually either sold them for my cost or drove the wheels off them. I have never had a car payment. I have heard plenty of guys who are making big monthly payments on two fancy late model vehicles complain that they could never afford a hot rod.
not that i am one to give advice because i`m broke as hell.occasionaly i have a buck or two in my pocket. i do a little buying and selling. i steal cable. no cell phone. alot of bologny. $10 a month dial up.
I work at the on the railroad, I have four kids, a house payment, one car note and a credit card plus other odd and end ****. I doubt if I'll EVER get paint on my Burb.............................
Tman is right, Dave Ramsey or John ***mata, these plans work, I know because I did it. Still have the house payment, but it is a new custom built home only a year old. I am only 36 so I will have it payed off long before I am 50. I always thought I needed a raise or another job where I made more money. The biggest and quickest raise I received was when I cut up credit cards and payed them off. Instant $500 a month. Debt free is the way to go. If I can do it, anyone can because I was the ulitmate MTV generation consumer.
Another thing to consider is what your shooting for in a ride. There's all kinds of price ranges in Rods and stock cars. If I was on a limited budget I'd look for a nice running stock car ( early 50's car, or ? )and maintain and do little stuff to it to make it my own.... I saw a little 51 Chevy the other day that was all stock and in real nice shape for like 6K.... it didn't need anything. That way your rolling...
Don't eat out. No junk food. No Starbuck's coffee. No McDonalds, Wendy's, etc. 15 year mortgage if you can swing it.
Oh ya the topic of this thread Disposable Income.. **** that.. Hot rods custom cars bikes etc.. think of them done right as an investment.. My last car sold for 42,5k.. Ok i only made like 6 k on it but i made money the previous one sold for 32,5k and i made 10k.. What it = to is a big *** check and if your doing things right you can stand to break even on 1 or 2 sales and still keep building if thats what you want.. Even if you arent building to sell i suggest you maintain the thought that you are. If the time comes and you have to or just decide to do so you will probably make money.. Hummm I wonder if i can market this on the net.. Hell ya ill start on my book tonite.. Seriously though think investment.. % bucks extra spent here on one small detail can mean hundreds. Think impulse and trends.. Ive actually got out of hot rods and just went to 2 week vacations on my motorcycle to back to hot rods. I did throw bikes back in though.. Dave
Except for a house payment and normal household bills, I pay cash for everything. If I don't have cash, I don't need it. My hobby cars are built with overtime money only. It may take several years to build a car, but oh well. I work overtime 2-3 times a week. That amounts to 20K extra a year.
a few of the things that i've learned over the past few years .....ramen noodles , 19 cents a pack . mac & cheese 69 cents .banquet frozen dinners are a lttle over a buck a piece. i quit buying lunch at Mc where ever and started brown bagging , saved a bunch . lucked out and found a really good paying side gig , all that income paid off all my credit card debt within a year and i started paying extra towards the principal on my home mortgage. now, my mortgage is paid off , i always pay off my one credit card monthly , and i mow lawns as a side gig (the good paying side line , the owner died and that was the end of that) , i still eat the cheap stuff and brown bag it just out of habit. i am by no means wealthy , but when i found a car i wanted , i had the cash at hand . same goes for any parts , the money is there . you just gotta watch how you spend your money.
As far as your credit card, do you only pay the minumum? Mine get paid off every month and I use it for everything. Also I have found that taking my lunch to work saves a good amount. I eat a lot of leftovers and pbj but that is money that was allready spent and not $5 going out of my pocket. Something else I do is drive my wifes car as much as I can to work. It gets better milage than my truck and gas is cheaper than diesel. I also switched my car insurance recently, switched to another company and dropped my yearly by $600, wish I would have done that one sooner. I also do not have cable.
As far as my credit card goes, I pay it last when I set down to do bills,and I pay as much as I can afford to pay. This is always more than the minimum. I just paid off our suv with my income tax so there is no more car payment. That is the newest thing we own and its a 1999. I drive a 1993 Honda Accord ****box to work for the fuel economy. I also have a 1996 dodge pickup but that is only used when needed ie to pull the car trailer. I rarely eat out and I brown bag it every day. Now that the suv is paid for I will pay off my credit card within the next month or so.I owe less than 1000 on it now.then I plan on paying more on the house so I can pay it off early.
Sounds like you're doing what it takes and getting things squared away. I guess it just takes some patience. It's hard to understand sometimes but a lot of these guys on here with the higher dollar rides have already raised their families. Hobbies have to take a back seat sometimes for family and daily responsibilities. Once the kids are gone, dive back in head first. Mootz
No offense but that at***ude is ******** and the reason we have an entire generation that has grown up not knowing where the dipstick is let alone how to change the oil.
If you sold the accord you would have the extra money from that as well as not having to pay the insurance on it. We had a '98 Astro(paid for), '03 Impala(paid for) and a '04 Chevy 1 ton(paymants). I trades the van for a Corvair and some money(No INS on corvair yet), dropped the ins on the Van (saved $300 year) and that was before we switched Ins. companies. When we moved back to OH last year we found a place in the country. No water or septic bill. Our house is all electric and the bill is 1/2 if the gas bill in PA. Our property taxes are $1800 in OH vs. $5000 in PA (same ***esed value house). When we moved we brought the stove and fridge with us rather than buying new ones. The store I shop at for food is open 24 hours, I do my shopping on the way home from work to save the extra trip. I also buy only what is on sale for the most part as well as comparison shop (annoys the wife for spending too much time there). I claim single and 0, wife claims married and 0 for our checks. We get a bigger refund every year and it usually goes to pay something or sits in the bank. This year it will go toward my truck. This year we are going to start a garden to grow our own veggies. We are also going to get chickens for eggs and meat and we plan to raise our own cow in about a year. In the meantime we are going to buy one from a local guy and get it butchered. Something else we do that some will not agree with is use those checks the credit card company sends us. I have 3 cards, one for everyday use(paid off monthly), one for internet, and one for emergencies. The last one we get those checks for 0% for usually 6 months. I figure out what I can offord to spend in 6 months and write on for that. we ise it for cars and the house. I do pay a small fee to use it but the fee is less that the intrest that would be paid on the car or the house in that 6 month time period. It works for us because we do not over do it. We stick with the amount we can afford and do not use it again till it is paid for.
Wel the money your spending is going some where. Write Everything down and compare your income to your bills and see where the rest is going Or get a finacial adviser to help. For example You migh have a huge truck that your spending half your check on gas or maybe a super fast car hat the insurance is 400 a month. There should be ways to free up some income that you can use on your hobby and still have some left for a savings
one way to figure out where the money is going to keep track of everything you spend. you'd be surprised how much you spend on certain things at the end of the month. my 'toys' are also my daily drivers... my 63 nova gets most of the mileage, but my 66 c-10 gets driven quite a bit of the time. it makes it a bit easier to spend money on them when I need to. I also do web design/ consulting on the side. last year I was able to make an extra $7k, although uncle sam took a huge chunk of that and with a wedding coming up and recent engagement (2 weeks ago) that money's disappearing on me.
If you have credit card debt you dont have money and your broke. Heres the thing you say you have a "savings" but your paying intrest on your outstanding cc debt and I bet that intrest you make in your savings is half the amount of the money you owe on your cc cards. So if you think about it the money you "have" will get smaller and smaller as your cc intrest will eat it up. its funny how alot of people say I have money but I have 10 g's in cc debt. to have mopney is to have no debt and a savings sorry not tryin to be mean just something ive learned
O and the only reason I have money to spend on my Merc is because im in debt and used credit cards and loans! lol im poor and broke. In my defence though I got a debt consolidation loan and paid all my cards off and now just make one payment to get rid of my debt. my goal is to pay everything off in a year. the money I spend on my cars comes from parts im selling that I dont need
I'm not offended nor do I owe near half of 10g's. Not all credit card debt is gathering 15% interest. In fact, it is very possible to have a 0% interest rate which is why it's not paid off. Responsibility is the key to everything I guess.
I remember someone saying on this board that unless you have $200 a month to spend on a project you will never get it done. I think there is some truth to that. Truth is we all piss away that much a month on stupid **** we don't need ,or even want, some of the time. I'll bet you can find that in you BUDGET, yes there is that word again. When it is budgeted for that is where it gets spent. Trying to build a car with what you have left over at the end of the month is like trying to save the money you have left over at the end of the month. There never is any. Money, like time goes farther if it is properly managed.
My wife and I make good money but like others we have some bills. Got a mortgage that needs fed monthly that is little higher then it could be (took a 10 year mortgage cause I didn't want to be still paying in 25 years), got a 20 year old daughter who attends Penn State and has no scholarships and is in her 2nd of 6 yrs of school, so the burden is on us, got three cars and the insurance to go with them and commuting costs are a little high since I drive 90 miles roundtrip to work daily. Like many people these days we eat out more than we should. And most of our savings goes to things like taxes and tuition. But as far as the cars are concern. One (57 Olds)I got for free from my brother in law, but I had to put about $10k in to it to make it the way we wanted it (custom). And the other (34 Ply) I purchased from a guy who was tired of it and sold it at a real reasonable price. It need very little, but I couldn't let it be. Both are garage kept, so they stay fresh and actually the upkeep is minor. Other than general maintenance, insurance and gas, I don't think either one has cost me more than a grand over the past 8 years. It can be tough to make ends meet, but if you are watchful, they will and eventually you will find that ac***ulative savings will come as well. Like some one said earlier, credit cards and loan interest can be a killer, but in today's world it can be really tough to avoid them. As a friend once told me..." you got to make a plan and then work your plan". Deviation from you plan can be major stumbling block.
I know but in most cases cc's have over 6% and savings only have around 2%. and if you have 0% it is the perfect time to pay it off before the 6 months is up and it goes to 15.9%
I agree the best way to go. If I need to order parts, I just put the money in my bank account and use my debit card to do so. I make about 60-65K a year, the wife stays home with the kids, we only have a house payment and a truck payment(which I seldom get to drive-but that's why I have the '56), and the usual lights, cable, etc.. Everything else was bought with cash. No credit card bills, furniture payments, etc.. Even with just me working- I still have enough money to support my car/truck habit and even a bottle of Early Times once in a while. There's alot of good advice on this thread...
The Jalopy Journal
