8 Comments

1. DD
   February 16th, 2007 at 9:39 am

   Just curious why you have such a large car fund? What type of car do you plan on purchasing? At any rate, it was a wise decision to fully fund your roth and hold off on the car purchase. Perhaps maybe buy a cheaper car?

   I’ve always just paid cash for my car. Currently, I have a 2004 Hyundai. Granted, I hardly drive the thing (as I live in NYC) but it does the job and looks good enough. I always chuckle when others in my building drive leased BMWs and other luxury cars and can barely afford the payments.

   I’ve enjoyed your blog for a few months now. Keep up the good work.

2. finance girl
   February 16th, 2007 at 11:25 am

   Smart man. I want to get to the level where we are maxing out 401ks, maxing out IRAs, but so far only gotten as far as maxing out 410ks.

   I also am saving for a new car. It’s a way lower priority, and only random dollars go into the “Car Fund”.

   Balance Sheet assets are our priority over a new car, just like you all.

   My good ol’ Acura Integra is 14 years old and running well. But we want to have the option to replace it in the next couple of years.

3. Grant
   February 16th, 2007 at 8:30 pm

   DD, our car savings goal is $25,000 for a 2006 Honda Accord. This is an all inclusive number, meaning we need to be able to do the deal (tags, taxes, fees, etc) for no more than $25k.

   Our original goal was to be able to purchase the car by April, but it looks like the date may have to be pushed back a little bit.

   Finance Girl, slow and steady wins the race, and as long as you’re contributing as much as you can, I’d say you’re doing fine.

   -Grant

4. Tag
   February 17th, 2007 at 8:21 am

   Grant,
   Way to go making foxnews web site. Good post. I’m working on retirement money too. Keep up the good work.

   Tag

5. Grant
   February 17th, 2007 at 6:35 pm

   Thanks Tag! Good luck.

6. John
   February 18th, 2007 at 2:51 pm

   I’ve been making similar calculations and decided you can always count on your Honda for a few more miles… I’m planning on pushing my ‘95 Accord (108k miles) for another year.

7. Winston
   February 18th, 2007 at 5:29 pm

   Nice work on the car savings AND the roth contributions. I like the outlook for gold right now, all the dips are being bought, the short-term trend is intact, it’s running on what used to be bearish news and the ‘hedge fund blow up’ in the metals seems to have been ignored.

   Question, do you and your wife have an ‘emergency’ fund? Meaning, money that could be used in the event of, say, a stolen vehicle or other property? I’m sure you have insurance on these things, but my items are worth more to me than what my insurance company would shell out…

8. Grant
   February 18th, 2007 at 9:59 pm

   Shoot, John, another year? We’ve got 155,000 miles on ours and it’s still going strong.

   Thanks for the input on Gold, Winston. It’s currently the frontrunner for my next major investment in the Roth.

   To answer your question, yes, we have an emergency fund, but no, it’s not as big as it should be! We just got done talking about where to “put” our emergency fund, and the current thought is to put it into a high interest Emigrant Direct savings account… More on that later.

   Winston, I’d love to hear about your experience with your insurance company. I just say a piece on CNN about how insurance companies are paying pennies for claims they should be paying dollars for. Some are offering to settle for $100 on medical bills that run in the $25,000 range…

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