Free Cars in Trinidad and Tobago?

Free Cars in Trinidad and Tobago?

A step by step guide on how to purchase a car for free.

 

Vehicle image courtesy Square One Motors

If you have the will, the desire and the patience, I can show you how you can get the car of your dreams or at least purchase a relatively inexpensive car every five years and not spend a dollar.  Sounds like a dream right.  I thought so too, until a friend of mine explained it and it all made sense. I was curious as to how this colleague of mine was able to start off with an Nissan B16 (popularly known as an Almera), then work his way up to a Mitsubishi pick-up truck, a BMW 3 series Sports sedan and finally a BMW X6.  We sat down at a local bar and he layed down the foundation for a step by step guide on how to purchase a car for free. But he did more than that, he changed my life.

Firstly, I was informed that we as a society are socially conditioned into believing the getting a loan and being in debt is a good thing.  For example, most people get excited when they are approved for a credit card, this is a sad thing indeed.  We have also been brainwashed into believing that when our cars get a little wear and tear, we should go out and get a new one.  It is imperative that you should break this cycle and reset your mind to a better way of thinking.  Keeping this in mind let’s assume that you want to purchase a car or rather you already have a car and you have just finished paying for it and looking to purchase a new one.  The fundamental thing that we normally do, is to take or loan or sell our current car and take a loan and get all weighed down by a moderate installment for the next six years, does that sound familiar? What if there was a better way, a smarter way? What If we decided to keep our money instead of sending it to the bank or some other financial lending institution?

ABT's Audi RS4-R Avant. Source: Carscoops.com

Let’s get smart about our money and come up with a plan that makes your money work for you instead of sending it all to the bank. Let’s just assume that the average car payment is three thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars ($3,250.00) per month.  If you take that money (the $3,250.00) and pay yourself instead of the bank, in ten (10) months you would have thirty two thousand, five hundred dollars ($32,500.00). You can sell your car and add the $32,500.00 you already saved and pay for a much better used car in cash.  That is a major upgrade in just 10 months without owing the bank or anyone for that matter. But let’s keep going, If you continue to save your money at that rate, you would have another $32,500.00 in another 10 months.  Chances are you might want to sell your new used car for another used upgraded car.  At this point you are twenty (20) months into the plan, you don’t owe the bank a cent and you are sitting a luxurious used car.  Remember where you were just 20 months before?  You were about to sign up for a loan of $3,250.00 payment for the next five to six years, at which time you would have to start the process all over again to get another car. Dave Ramsey also explains a similar process called, Drive Free Cars, whereby he shows you that with a little patience and some know how, you will never have to pay another car loan bank payment again.

So now that I have your attention, let’s say we carry out our new plan and for the next six (6) years or rather seventy two (72) months we pay ourselves that $3,250.00 in a good savings plan that offers a fair amount of interest.  If you had stuck to the old plan you would now be finishing paying for your car and looking to get a new one and be right back where you start.  But now it’s no problem, because with our new plan we now have a specific saving fund with close to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($250,000.00).  If you go buy a car for cash one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars ($125,000.00), you would still have well over one $125,000.00 just sitting in your savings account earning interest.  Do you have any Idea what that means? Even if you never make or add another payment to your saving account, you will be able to buy a one hundred thousand dollar car every five years.  The interest you would earn on your savings account will pay for your cars for the rest of your life. 

Next let’s look at what you can afford, how much can you afford to put out for the car and still maintain your comfortable lifestyle.  With this in mind you go about gathering info about the car that you want, you go to the owner or the firm and you negotiate the price.  You then go to the bank and you get all the costs, fees associated with purchasing the car to see if it is in alignment with the amount you can afford.  Usually it doesn’t match up and the current cost far outweighs your estimated budget cost for the vehicle.  So what do you do about it?  Nothing, you simply do not buy.  You have to power to walk away from the deal and feel comfortable knowing that there is a better way.  So how do you get the car if you walk away from the deal you might ask.  The answer is even simpler than you might think.

So here is the secret, something truly radical.  You save your budgeted installment.  Yes it is going to hurt a bit. That is to say you save the amount in which you can afford to pay for your car.  Therefore you open an account specifically geared at purchasing your car and you can only afford the twelve hundred ($1,200) per month and the monthly payment for the car of your dreams is twenty five hundred ($2500).  So you invest your twelve hundred and in ten (10) months you can have twelve thousand ($12,000) dollars and in twenty months  (20) you will have twenty four ($24,000) plus interest.  You invest for 2yrs which is the magic number, into your new savings plan.  By this time the car has also depreciated so the cost of it is less.  You can now get your dream car second hand with low mileage for much less than what it had originally cost.  Best of all the car is relatively new and the back will be willing to work with you to give you the best deal possible because you now have the money to cover everything.  Is this not a great idea?

New TT$100 Bill, Source: Looptt.com

Let’s take it further, say you placed your money in an investment earning ten percent (10%) for the period of the time of the initial negotiations you made when you first enquired about the loan which would be for six (6) year. That’s over ninety-five thousand dollars ($95,000). Because the average cost for a car in Trinidad can range between Thirty thousand to four hundred dollars, you can buy a good car for that amount of money cash, and still have change, insurance included.  Now here is where it gets radical lets say hold onto your new car and still invest in the fund for the next ten to twenty years.

In Summary, I have always considered myself a financial guru of sorts.  I have followed the great financial advisors like Warren Buffet, Brian Tracy and Dave Ramsey with some success and failure.  But it took a Trinidadian to convince me that that these ideas and methods work, because seeing is believing. So now I am definitely a believer.  I am now three years into the plan and following this step by step guide on how to purchase a car for free, with little or no success as yet because I have still have about a year again still to pay on my current faithful vehicle.  Who knows, maybe I might get my Dream car Porsche Macan in time to come, or I might just settle for a New Pick-up truck.  It is really unfortunate that the don't sell the reliable VW Golf and Toyota Rav 4 at a fair price in the Caribbean. The next time we meet, my friend said, he is going to show me how to beat the Car Insurance company, so stay tuned.