leasing a car. Its the most expensive way to operate a vehicle according to Consumer Reports, Smart Money magazine, and my calculator. Dave Ramsey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=509&v=PJ0TlFYpAXY
Pay cash for your car if you ever want to be wealthy. Your car should cost no more then 1/2 your annual salary. Dave Ramsey.
Dave Ramsey skims over a lot if things in his 'analysis'.
1) What if you get 0% financing? With inflation, you're better off paying later than sooner as your money is actually going down in value over time.
2) What's the opportunity cost of not having that $30k that you buried into your cash car purchase? It could be in the market working for you instead of doing nothing in your car.
When your lease is up, you have 3 options:
1) If it's worth less than the residual, walk away. This happened a year ago to my wife when her Town and Country lease was up and we found out that since Chrysler replaced that with the Pacifica, T&C's were worthless on trade in. But when the lease was up, we simply handed them the keys. Even though it's trade in value was $3k less than what we owed on it. Try doing that with a purchased car.
2) If it's worth more than the residual, trade it in and pocket the difference.
3) Buy it outright.
In other words, when leasing, you're deferring a decision 3 years down the road when you will have more information than you do right now.
Leasing also allows you to always be driving a new car fully covered by the manufacturer's warranty. And with technology changing as quickly as it is, it allows you to stay up to date with the latest safety technology. Not to mention, the new technology causes your older tech car to depreciate more rapidly. Imagine trading in a CX-5 GT 2 years from now if they add the turbo and surround camera to the new ones. What will that do to your trade in value?
I would never, I mean NEVER pay cash for a car. In fact I never put a dime down on a car unless it will lower my financing rate which these days is so low it's almost free anyway.