NY Times: Car Leases Can Be the Most Binding of Contracts

bro1999 said:

Hmm..... I've flipped 4 leased vehicles the past 8 months, and I came out ahead several thousand. *Shrug*

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bro1999 said:

Yeah, losing your license doesn't make a financed car payment go away either. Pretty poor article. IMO.

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Sometimes you game the system, sometimes the system games you, as brought out in the article. If you have the golden key for gaming the system that everyone can use, post a thread and get it stickied.

llninja said:

The only exception to borrowing is housing where it's really hard to pay 100% on a house. For housing you rent until you have at least 20% down and buy only if you plan on staying in the house for a half a decade or more. Renting buys you patience with increasing rates every year and buying locks in your housing costs for the long term.

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On the subject of housing, I could pay off my house, but I usually make more in investments than I pay in interest on the house. So there's a net gain. But if I suddenly can't pay for the house, my equity gets flushed. That's the risk.

On a side note, we got a quote for health insurance that's more than our house payment (60% increase from last year). We've made other arrangements, but I don't know where to file that outrage. I foresee people not being able to pay their car lease payments, or worse.......

llninja said:

Bro tried again but the car selling service got wise to it, didn't give him that deal of the decade like the last Cruze he bought.

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I see.......

llninja said:

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to shopping healthcare plans with Obamacare. I may go out and get a regular J.O.B. Just for the company provided health plans.

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Many people don't realize that the J.O.B. insurance comes fully out of pocket too. There's the part taken out of your check, and the part that's part of your compensation package. Both are really paid by you. The only advantage I'm aware of is that the insurers might be giving a better price to the big corporations.

Many people also think they haven't had a raise in a while. Not true. Your raise went to Blue Cross.

I'm telling folks, look at your enrollment package offer, before you vote. I'm hearing that people aren't opening the letter out of fear.

llninja said:

So ask yourself, if you had a paid-for house, would you borrow $100-200K against the house to make investments?

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I might. It would depend on the market environment I suppose. My father-in-law did it, and he even mortgaged the furniture. He did pretty well, all told.