Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Archives for March 2010

Cash Back Rebate or 0% Financing?

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Let me begin by saying that I don’t see any real value in buying a car new.  You’d be better off waiting a year or two and buying the same model after the initial devaluation happens.  If you insist, however, and you have to choose between a cash back rebate and 0% financing, here’s how it breaks down.

I’m taking liberties here and using a few assumptions.  The first, and most important, assumption is that you’ll use the cash back rebate as an addition to your down payment.  I’m also assuming a 5 year loan because that’s pretty standard for a new car loan.  I’m assuming that you’re going to use the cash back rebate as an addition to your down payment, because you’d be an idiot not to.  No really.  Why would you buy a $20,000-$50,000 car that will lose at least 10% of it’s value the second you sign the dotted line and then also take the $2500 (Or however much) in cash?  Also, if you do take it in cash, will you drop me a line?  I’ve got some ocean front property in Oklahoma to sell you.

Assumptions aside, the deciding factor here is the interest rate.  The lower the interest rate if you take the cash back, the better that side looks.  Somewhere around 5.8% they are about even over the life of the loan.  Of course, if you make extra payments that will change things as well.  If you can get a rate of 4% or so, the difference is pretty good and you should use the cash back and run with it.  At something like 8%, however, you’d be pretty silly to not take the 0% financing.

In the end, there are several variables that need to be taken into account such as trade in and sales tax.  And this is far from a scientific study I did here, nor is it meant to detail exactly how to buy a car.  What I would suggest is using a loan amortization calculator and punching in the numbers.  For this little experiment, I used a calculator built for just such a calculation at interest.com.

Unautomate Your Finances

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Unautomate Your FinancesIsn’t that a funny title.  Even I had to double take to make sure that it wasn’t typed wrong.  But, yes, unautomate it is.  And the man with the plan is Adam Baker.  You likely know him from ManVsDebt.  Maybe not, but if not, you should.  And he’s got a plan to help you unautomate your finances.  From reading his blog, it certainly seems to have worked for him and after reading the review copy of the ebook, it might just work for a few of you out there too.

The concept is pretty simple.  Automating your finances can go to far.  It can cause you to “set it and forget it”. And that can lead to expenses getting out of control.  Which is where Baker’s Unautomate Your Finances comes in.  The eBook is 83 pages of wonderful advice for minimizing your financial footprint and living a life of controlled finances.  He’s got a pretty impressive list of bonuses that you can get when you buy the eBook too!  There’s two awesome interviews.  A video one with Leo Babauta, who writes a ton on minimalist living.  And there’s an audio interview with J.D. Roth of GetRichSlowly.com (And author of Your Money: The Missing Manual).  He’s also throwing in the templates that he’s created for the program’s minimalist budgeting system.  One in .pdf for printing and one in excel for use on a computer.  And finally, he’s giving you all the updates you can handle.

And he’s only charging you $17 for the whole shebang.  I know he’s planning on upping the price to $27 eventually (I don’t know when) so I wouldn’t wait too awful long if your interested.  This program could be a great thing for those of you who are feeling out of control of your finances and want a more simple way of getting them back under control.

You can read a bit more on the program and the eBook by visiting: Unautomate Your Finances

Disclaimer: I’m an affiliate of both Amazon and Unautomate Your Finances.  If you click through and end up buying either the books I’ve linked or the eBook from Baker, I will get a portion of that sale.  That didn’t sway my review, I really do believe all those things I said up there.  Affiliate links like those are how I pay to keep this site operating, so I appreciate when you do click through.  Thanks.

Innovis Health Stinks

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Unfortunately, I try to keep this blog safe for work; which means that I can’t use the words and terms that I would like to in reference to Innovis.  In short, Innovis Health is one of the worst medical facilities that I’ve ever had to deal with.  And that’s not an exaggeration.  Innovis Stinks.

And here’s why.  Actually, the laundry list of reasons is a bit too long for me to go into detail, but let me discuss the most recent issue that is prompting this post.

I owe them money.  All told, it’s around $1300 that I owe them.  Not a big deal, and manageable.  Unless your Innovis.  Beginning in November of last year, I’ve had a budgeted agreement with them to pay them $45 a month.  I set it up on my bill pay to make sure that I won’t miss a payment and all is well and good, right?  Wrong.

Today, I got a phone call from their business department (read bill department) requesting a call back.  I called back and got a rep.  What she explained to me is that the policy of Innovis is to get at least 10% of the outstanding bill as a payment.  Fine, I told her, but I can’t pay that.  We only have so much money in the month and $45 is what we can afford to send to them.  I was then informed that unless they get the 10%, there is no way for them to guarantee that my bill will not get reviewed for collections.  What?!?

In a nutshell, they would rather sell my account to a collection agency and get 50% (or whatever an agency pays for debt) of the money they are owed instead of carrying the bill and receive all of it $45 at a time?  What kind of hair brained idea is that?  By being a good consumer and paying my bill on time and consistently, they are going to irreparably damage my credit report?  Some reward for doing the right thing.

I have half a mind to ask them to send it to collections now so I can begin negotiations with the collection agency to reduce the bill.  Unfortunately, I don’t know if that would affect my families ability to receive medical care there.  Not a big deal for me, I switched to a different medical facility a while ago, but Innovis has the only Pediatrician in town.

Innovis is the worst health facility I’ve ever dealt with.

And thanks for reading my rant.  I know I feel better.