Madison MoneySports - Personal Finance Thread

[Jake]

Yeah, good point. I mean, I think I'll be pretty shocked with how much I spend on frivolous stuff once I add up all of the equipment and such I have laying around for projects/hobbies I never saw through to completion. Hell, I have basically a home studio setup and kinda lost steam on it.... and then kept all of my studio monitors in a glorified PC media setup. Woops. I research a lot and buy well but then I lose steam and get bored and don't sell anything. I can literally talk your ear off about almost anything since I've probably dabbled in it. I just don't do a good job at fully exiting a hobby. I think that's my next step.  I'm going to free up some funds by reducing my island of misfit hobbies and go from there. Thanks for the pointers, gents. Appreciate you guys.

Hey Tyler, I'm a little late to the party here but you asked earlier up "how do you all afford track cars" etc etc. so here's how I did it with a good bit of transparency.

The biggest hurdle to acknowledge is that I never had student loans. Those can be a sizable payment each month so good on you for getting yours knocked down. Beyond that, I largely made it through the last nine (fuck) years since graduation with a lot of luck, some hustling, and not a lot of savings until very recently. I'd say I floated by with a few grand in savings for most of that time and only got serious in the last year or two. It was dumb but it let me get on track early and there is a lot of value in enjoying your life and friends and hobbies while you are young and fit and full of energy/stamina. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

My thought was that I lived in an area with a lot of jobs in my field (web development, technology consulting, etc) and if I were to be let go for some reason, I could find work easily enough. It was a risk but not the biggest one at the time. In today's climate I'd probably think differently as Ryan mentioned.

When my Miata engine blew up and I was daily-driving what is now Taylor's Spec3 BMW, I sold the BMW for a new Focus ST. It felt right at the time as I was worried about DDing an old BMW when my second car was blown up. Hindsight is 20/20 and maybe that E36 would have continued to be a reliable commuter. In any case, I did a lot of side work to build up down payment money on the Focus. Sold it a year later because I didn't like it enough and lost my ass on depreciation. Should have either kept the E36 or bought my dad's Infiniti from him when he sold it. Would have been a well-kept, nice, boring commuter for like $4k cash. I then sold the Focus for a 128i which was awesome but should have been a truck/SUV to tow with instead. After the 128i, I financed my '05 Yukon Denali which needed parts thrown at it on a monthly basis. Didn't learn my lesson that financing a fairly old, high mileage vehicle is a dumb idea when you're also paying to fix it.

I bought a Pontiac Firebird for $400 and flipped it for $2400 when I lived with DJ. That paid for my open trailer. I sold the open trailer a handful of years later for $2k and bought my enclosed for a pretty good deal at oh... $7800? Maybe a hair less. I put cash down and financed 2/3s of it through LightStream, which will do higher-interest loans for trailers, RVs, ATVs, and so on. I think the interest rate was about 7% so not great but not bad given that purchase let me move to a more desirable area as it's a rolling garage.

Building the E36 M3 racecar was a struggle given I was trying to do a lot with not a lot of income. I bought that car when I was making something like $48k/year living in NoVA and going out to bars four nights a week. Ended up running up a big credit card bill in like 2015 and used my first-job 401k cashout to pay it off. It was so painful pulling that money out and paying the penalties, but CC interest was killing me and finding $8k cash to just end it all was what I had to do. No real CC debt to speak of since then, I pay every card in full every time I get paid. I do have a few cards I use for various things to capitalize on rewards points/programs.

I think my biggest regret through all of this has been the points where I had two car loans at the same time. My 2011 F-150 and 2006 M3 were financed in tandem and I hated having two payments, particularly for such an old BMW that also had the risk of blowing up about nine different and creative ways, perhaps all at once. I could've just had the truck and had more money for savings + racecar.

The second-biggest regret was getting my new/current job and immediately leasing a new $65k-MSRP F-150. This was a key example of "just because you can afford it doesn't mean you should buy it" and my payment plus insurance each month was eye-wateringly close to having a comma in it. Really. Ford bought the truck back due to something they couldn't fix on the 5.0L V8 and turning those keys in was a huge relief. It allowed me to pick up my CPO, very nice Ram and sock away half of the Ford payment to savings each month. 

I have a loan on my Ram 1500 but I have a lot of positive equity in it, and I've had fun dicking around with street cars that I buy in cash, do something goofy with, and sell a few months later. I have a near-300k-mile Volvo right now with three pedals and a turbocharger. It's more fun than something newer because I just don't give any fucks about it.

I'm at the point now where my only debt is my pickup truck, I save a fairly good amount in cash each month, contribute to my 401k, and invest on my own. It's all pretty good now but has not been like this in the past. I still have side gigs that keep me very busy but they allow for a lot of perks, too. Hoping to build Out Motorsports up to be a form of passive income in ad revenue (one day, sigh) but that will be a long way off.