The Decisions Nobody Frames as a Budget Problem
Renting versus buying and financing a car versus not are usually talked about as lifestyle decisions. Session 9 treats them as what they actually are: the two biggest recurring line items most people will ever have, decided years before most people think to run the numbers on them.
Ten Years, Side by Side
Students picked a real Phoenix neighborhood and ran the ten-year cost of renting an apartment against buying a comparable home: down payment, mortgage interest, property tax, maintenance, versus rent increases over the same decade. Neither answer was universally right. The point was that most people never run the comparison at all.
"I always assumed buying was just better. The numbers made it a lot more complicated than that."
A Car Payment Is a Second Rent
We ran the same exercise on transportation: the full cost of a car loan, insurance, gas, and maintenance, compared to public transit or rideshare for someone who doesn't need a car daily. For a lot of students, the car came out costing more than they expected, once every piece was counted instead of just the loan payment.
What's Next
Session 10 turns to college access: reading a real financial aid award letter and comparing two schools side by side for the same major.