Quote:
Originally Posted by tachi1247
Financing the car as others have suggested is by far the best financial move. .
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That's a matter of opinion and personal preference/philosophy.
Alternatively, you could pay cash for the car, take the "car payment' and dollar cost average it into a good set of mutual funds, and in the end, end up with more money because you can put it in higher yielding investments. Do that long enough between cars and your next car may already be paid for by the time you need it, including paying taxes on the earnings, which you did not mention.
Also, its almost never a good financial decision to purchase a new car. Buying a 1 to 2 year old car, which will most likely still be under warranty, is nearly always a better option. In fact, it is typically cheaper to repair your existing car than to ever buy a new car.
Example, I could swap the engine with a new crate engine (and probably upgrade it to a V8) in my 2001 Chevy Astro every year for the annual car payment cost that folks will pay on the FR-S if they finance it and make monthly payments.
But before you do either of these methods, you need to have an emergency fund to get you through, well emergencies. If you don't, you need to do that first, before you save 1 penny towards either method (cash for a car or financing).
Again, there's nothing wrong with either method and arguments can be made on both sides that its the "best financial decision". In the end the best financial decision is the one that lets you sleep at night.