sleepydoc
Well-Known Member
I tried listening to Dave Ramsey a couple times and couldn’t take it. It was the same line over and over again with no nuance or appreciation for other factors.The "leasing is always bad" people may not appreciate that it is just another tool and sometimes by far the best for the job. Example a couple of years ago it was possible to lease a Chevy Bolt for negative money. At least one guy on the leasehackr.com forum navigated just the right incentives, and had just the right income, to pay less than $0 to drive a Bolt through the lease term. It's an extreme example used to illustrate a point.
Probably the best lease I ever did was on a 2012 Leaf, which I was paying $239/month for with $0 out of pocket at signing, and after 15 months I brought it back to Nissan to get a different car. I can't recall how I got out of the leaf without penalty (I absolutely did not roll negative equity), but nissan also was giving $1k credit to *all* Leaf owners (including leasees!) then to cover loss in equity, so I ended up paying $2500 to drive a new car for 15 months, which is pretty darn good and a heck of a lot better than the five digit losses taken by those who had bought.
The main issue with leases is there are a lot more ways to get caught and it’s much harder to navigate or understand the terms clearly. You’re right, though - they’re another tool. The key is to use them properly.