I paid cash as well. No sense paying finance fees!!!

It's all about personal preference. I'm on my 2nd X5 lease and I love it. New car, new warranty and new car smell every 3 years. I don't consider finance fees a waste of money. It's part of life.

Paying cash for a 70K car does not make sense. Why? As soon as you drive the car off the lot, you start loosing your 70K.

I could take the 70K and invest it aggresively and still make a lot more profit in 3 years than what I would paid for finance fees.

Pay for 70K cash. Then after 3 or 5 years, you start having problems, expensive maintenance, old leather smell and by the time you decide to sell, you're not going to have much to show for your 70K.

So if you think you're actually saving money by paying cash, think again.

But....what works for me might not work for everybody.

The bottom line, it's about loving what you drive everyday, weather a brand new or a 10 year old X5.

Well , I guess it is really a personal preference but I truly doubt that you can earn $13K on a $70K investment in 3 years time (approximately 6% interest) in the current market and I dont care how aggressive the investment is. I know this because I work in Wall Street for 22 yrs now.

For me, I still prefer buying things with cash. I own it and I can use it anyway I want to without any regards to mileage. Besides, I always have the options to keep the X5 past the 3 years without worrying about the payments.
Just my two cents!!!!

I can make 5k PER DAY on 70K, Day trading. If I do margin calls, I make a lot more. Just like what I said, it's not for everybody.

Well even if you finance, you're not going to be borrowing all $70k. I think it came out to less than $2k of interest in an actual ~$20k loan for 36 months or something similar. So you can invest that $20k you didn't use and make up for that $2k interest easily. I'm not a finance guy, but that makes sense to me.

Hell, my money is sitting in an online savings account making 4.89% right now so it wouldn't be a big loss (if at all considering other things) if I had to borrow.

I think most people lease when a car gets to a certain price point or they put a bunch down. I don't think there are too many who only put $10K down on a $70K car and finance the rest for 60 months. I don't like having to think about how many miles I have to drive. And circumstances change and maybe you take a new job that is much further away and there go your miles. I have an '01 X5 with 75K mile on it + 150K mile extended warranty on it---I'd rather pay myself back now for the next 3-4 years compared to someone who always has a lease payment. Everybody has their own reasons lease vs. buy.

paid cash

Financing, when it comes in January.

$20-somethingK down, thanks to the RX330 (if we're lucky)... the rest is for me to wade through.

my savings account earns over 5% and my investments have been earning 30+% over the last 4 years.

it's your money and you do what you want to, but paying 70k cash for a bimmer is simply dumb. money should be making money. even a monkey should be doing better than 6%

In the uk you pay tax on bank interest and capital gains at 40% (if you are an upper rate tax payer), making the whole investing thing a lot more marginal. I did a full cost analysis including the depreciation and what I would be likely to gain through investing and it still worked out cheaper to pay cash.

I don't have the time to actively manage my investments to make 5k a day. Wish I had!