Hello all,



A few months back, I sold my S2000. I make many weekend trips to Manhattan, and it wasn't fun for me putting 19,000 miles on the car a year. So since I sold it, I bought an '86 Jetta to daily drive. The car is great, 40mpg, and $40 a month for insurance.

Now onto the tough call. With the money I received for the S2000, I paid off all my debts, bought the beater, and managed to put $15,000 into a money market account currently getting 3%ish a month. Within the past two months, I've also managed to save another $1,300 on top of that. Now for those of you playing the home game, that is $16,300. I've been planning to pick up a new weekend/fun car in the Spring or Summer of next year. Giving me plenty of time to save towards something nice.

I've been looking at C5 Corvette's, 4th generation Camaro SS', etc. The only problem is, they are hard to find in good condition with low miles, for the right price. Even C5 ZO6's are still going for a good amount. My Brother just recently purchased his for $28,000 with 14,000 original miles on it.

Now my situation. I'm 18 years old, 19 at the end of the month. I live at home, and I am a full time college student. My driving record is very good, and my cars are insured under my parents name. I recently received a promotion at work, which now leaves me working full time, at almost $2/hr. more then what I was making before. By the time I am ready to buy a new car, I should have about $21,000 to spend. I was thinking about seeing if the prices of C6 Corvettes will drop to around $35K, and financing the car over the course of a few years.

What do you think I should do? Am I too young to get tied into marrying a car for 3-5 years? Is it just stupid? Maybe I should just buy something outright, but since it is a weekend car, low miles and cleanliness are a big issue.

Edit: If I were to finance, and chose a five year plan, I could get payments under $300 a month.

Tell me what you think,
Matt.

 

Just buy another S2000 for cash.

 

Buy a used S2000 - 02 or 03, and you won't need to finance.

 

i'd put that money in Emigrant Direct or some other higher interest bearing accounts (over 5% APY/APR) and not worry about a sports car until i buy a house/condo first and build up a solid nest egg for the rainy day that's surely to come once or twice in life.

but then again i didn't do that when i was in college and blew away a few hundred Ks in my 20s on cars and useless junk instead of saving that money - took me years to pay off the financing, and what did i get out of it? this website as a daily read. so go ahead, spend that money you (don't) have. maybe you won't regret it in your 30s, but i'm willing to bet that you will.

 

Particularly about putting that money into a high-yield savings account. INGDirect has 4.5% APY while HSBC and Emigran have 5.05% FOR A SAVINGS ACCOUNT!!!

 

Citibank E-Savings is also at 5%. I'd heed the words of the last two posters. No need to be pimping it while in college.

 

Emigrant Direct savings (at 5.05%) and Emigrant Direct MasterCard (1.40% cash rebate direct to your savings TAX FREE) FTW!

 

College and money towards a house afterwards are taken care of, this is strictly play money. I'm just trying to decide what I want to do, so far you've all had some good ideas. I'm sticking with the money market account since the money will only be in there for a short time, an extra 1% won't make a big difference for me or the amount of money I have in there.