Best Way to Pay for a Large Purchase?

ATN_Pilot said:
Sorry, I ain't buying it.
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When the salesman sees their commission walk out the door they come chasing after they talked to their manager.

As for hospitals I talked to the patient advocate person about all the gown charges for my wife when she had the baby. She wore only one gown, not a new one each day as they charged. That was nearly $300 alone out of what insurance didn't cover because of an extended 3 days in the hospital.

You're a business man. I thought you would be more like Buffett who reads his balance sheets every morning to check for errors or improvements. I treat personal purchases the same way as I do my business purchases.
 
Cessnaflyer said:
As for hospitals I talked to the patient advocate person about all the gown charges for my wife when she had the baby. She wore only one gown, not a new one each day as they charged. That was nearly $300 alone out of what insurance didn't cover because of an extended 3 days in the hospital.
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See, this is what I'm talking about. You claimed to have haggled down prices in the hospital, when all you really did was catch them in the act of trying to cheat you and put a stop to it. Apples and bacon.

You're a business man. I thought you would be more like Buffett who reads his balance sheets every morning to check for errors or improvements. I treat personal purchases the same way as I do my business purchases.
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As do I. But this isn't Turkey. We don't haggle over everyday purchases. And people who claim that they do so successfully aren't being truthful.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
See, this is what I'm talking about. You claimed to have haggled down prices in the hospital, when all you really did was catch them in the act of trying to cheat you and put a stop to it. Apples and bacon.



As do I. But this isn't Turkey. We don't haggle over everyday purchases. And people who claim that they do so successfully aren't being truthful.
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It depends on what you're buying. Furniture, cars and most home improvement services are the ones that you can usually save quite a bit on. You're not buying these everyday so it's not like I haggle with everything but when I know they have a large margin I usually try to get some of it back.

With the hospital, I did haggle with them on stuff for pricing when she said the insurance company didn't have the best pricing. When it was all finished about 30 minutes later I saved more than I would've made on a contract day trip. Well worth my time. Staying on top of the insurance companies to make sure they played nice with the double coverage is another story I've told somewhere on here before. :bang:
 
SpiceWeasel said:
Financial gurus... I'm looking for some advice...

If you absolutely needed to buy something between $7,000-$10,000, couldn't live without it:

Buy with a credit card?
Second Mortgage?
Withdraw 401(k)?

Doesn't look like this item is finance-able... it's 1/2 up front, half at delivery, so I have to figure out my own financing option.

If I buy with a credit card, I can fit it on there, but it'll take forever to pay it off, at 12.99%.

Does one just not buy things if one cannot cover it with cash in their bank account?

The liquidity is as follows:

I take home 62.8% of my first paycheck of the month, and 58.4% of the second paycheck.

Of that remaining cash, my mortgage + association dues (covering water) is 50%. Remainder of utilities is 9.6%. My car insurance is 6.5%. Union dues is 4%. Student loan is 4%. Cell phone is 2.1%. Gas for my car is currently 3.3%. That gets me to about 80% of my available monthly cash. The remaining cash is currently tied up in attempting to pay a credit card off (0% interest currently), because I can't afford to pay off what I spend on it in a month, so I pay chunks. Of course, I also have to buy food and stuff, so I usually put that on credit.

Anyway, this gets me to my question: what's the best method to buy something I absolutely need at this point... just not to? Seems like that's the way to go, just putting it up above. But does anyone have good ideas for clever workarounds?
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No, you simply can't afford whatever it is you want to buy. The people on JC you read about who have no cash emergency fund, who put everything on credit, who lease luxury cars, and who finance everything have a drastically higher disposable income than you. These people don't worry about things like "can I afford this" because they already know if they can.

These people can finance things and put stuff on credit because they can afford it. You can't. You are not at the point where all of the "sophisticated" financial advice applies to you. You are at the point where you absolutely need a positive cash flow just for daily living expenses. You can't even save for nice stuff you want because your debt load is too high. And if you pay off your debt and start living within your means, you still have to save money in order to buy expensive things because your income isn't sufficient to do anything else. Until you're at the point where you don't have to finance food, extra expenses just have to wait.

You are why Dave Ramsey exists much to the chagrin of some. You simply don't have the resources to manage finances like ValueTranPilot does and really need to live within your means.

All of that might have sounded harsher than I intended... My apologies for that.
 
SpiceWeasel said:
As an aside, I can't even imagine a net monthly income of over $10,000 a month. Because if you're charging 10 grand, you have to make a lot more to pay off the purchase in one go.

I still don't clear $3,000 in a month net. Not close. About 25% less.
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Not necessarily.. I charge about $40k a month to credit cards.. Got to get those miles..
 
Like @tonyw said, that's a financeable thing if you look around. That said, spending that amount of money on it now is more a peer pressure thing than a real need. You can always buy one for cheaper now with the understanding that eventually when you are a Big Shot Captain you can buy the one you actually want to get. That's what I did.

Or I just totally missed what you were saying and ignore everything I said.
 
tonyw said:
I can think of one thing. And that one thing can be obtained with interest free financing for up to 24 months depending on where you get it and how much it costs.

If it is that thing, check with me first.
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Refrigerator? That's all I can really think of that really would affect the ability to live somewhere, but that wouldn't run $7,000+.
 
BobDDuck said:
ORLY?

http://www.subzero-wolf.com/sub-zero/full-size-refrigeration/refrigeration#vid1
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Well, of course you can splurge and find them at that price level, but I meant that it's not necessary to spend that kind of cash on one.

mikecweb said:
I'd shoot you a message on facebook but you are too cool...
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steve-urkel-strut-o.gif


(There's also iMessage and you know, PMs on JC ;))
 
dasleben said:
Well, of course you can splurge and find them at that price level, but I meant that it's not necessary to spend that kind of cash on one.



steve-urkel-strut-o.gif


(There's also iMessage and you know, PMs on JC ;))
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Don't rejoin facebook. You haven't missed squat.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Having a few grand in a savings account makes sense. Having $20k in a savings account is straight up retarded.
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I'm almost to the point where I think I should stop putting money into my savings account. What's the best place to put it? 401k?
 
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