Car Buying Tips With Industry Expert Josh Sack

Join Arsenal Financial advisors Doug Orifice and Jeremy Vaille as they open up their relaxed office conversations about various financial topics for everybody to hear. In this episode they welcome car industry expert Josh Sack to talk about buying a car in today's world. Listen to learn about:

• Should you buy or lease?
• What's a car buying advocate and how can they help make things easy for you?
• Learn about the dealers perspective on financing and trade-ins and what you can do to prepare to get the best deal.
• What do you need to think about with EVs, hybrids, and alternative transportation options?
• Then of course finish up with a couple of Jeremy's dad jokes.

Reach out to Josh at sackmanconsulting@gmail.com.

Learn more about Stressless Car at stresslesscar.com.

Learn more about Doug, Jeremy, and Arsenal Financial at arsenalfinancial.com or call (781) 335-9100.

Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor. Member FINRA/SIPC. The information in this podcast is educational and general in nature and does not take into consideration the listener’s personal circumstances. Therefore, it is not intended to be a substitute for specific, individualized financial, legal, or tax advice. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a final decision.

Transcript

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Doug: 0:04

Well, hello welcome to another episode of the Arsenal Money Clip podcast. We are trying really, really, really hard to give you a listenable podcast about money. My name is Doug Orifice. I'm a financial advisor here in Watertown, Massachusetts. I am here with multiple friends today. I’m super, super excited. My partner, Jeremy Vaille, is hanging out in Norwell, Mass today. Jeremy, what is going on? How are you?

Jeremy: 0:26

Good. Doing, great. Good to be here this afternoon.

Doug: 0:29

Psyched it's Friday?

Jeremy: 0:31

Oh yeah, looking forward to it.

Doug: 0:32

We got a super special guest today. We're going to get to that in a second. In case you're tuning in for the first time, Jeremy and I run an investment management and financial planning practice with two offices, one in Watertown, Mass and one in Norwell, Mass. As I say to my son every once in a while, we don't do this podcast to get famous and become Joe Rogan and Bill Simmons. This is just to share some of the stuff that Jeremy and I talk about week to week, either with each other or with our clients, with a few more people, and that's why we're doing this.

Doug: 0:57

Man, JV, how many times has car buying come up in 2025? 

Jeremy: 1:02

It's come up a lot, and it's come up a lot since 2021, 2022. And it was in the news a lot, right.

Doug: 1:09

I'm excited to get our very special guest's opinion on this, but I feel like for 20 years, car buying was not a thing that was a big bullet to dodge in your financial situation. It was just another way to go negotiate a payment that you were used to. But really, since COVID, buying a car is now something that you have to plan around. It is an expense that doesn't happen in the same way that we planned for it. So we're going to talk about car buying today with one, Josh Sack. Josh, welcome to the Arsenal Money Clip Podcast. Super stoked to have you here. Why don’t you say hi and maybe tell the three and a half people listening about what you do and some of your 30 years of experience in the car industry.

Josh: 1:52

Yeah, thanks for having me guys, I appreciate it. So I was in the car business for roughly, retail, for roughly about 15 years. Went to four years of college and, much to my parents' chagrin, went right out into the car business and started selling cars after the four years education that I paid for. Retail 15 years, I was a car salesman starting back in late 97. Transitioned into a BDC, built a what they call business development center, which is handling internet leads as well as phone calls, setting appointments, getting customers through the doors, helping get people into the showroom to sell cars.

Josh: 2:31

From there I became a sales manager at the desk and shortly after left the car business to get into the still automotive side of technology, learned all the thousand different technologies that dealers need to use. Which has actually made the car buying experience more complex, not just for the customer but for the dealers, and it's actually made things harder for everybody, unfortunately. Then moved on to a large BDC company that I helped start and build up to roughly about 200 dealers. And over the last eight months I actually went out on my own and started my company, consulting company, Sackman Consulting. And what I do is I help dealers learn how to use the technology that they pay thousands and thousands of dollars for.

Josh: 3:18

I help them learn how to use it, keep it implemented within the store and help create a better customer experience. So I've really hit every side of the car business. So I have a lot of background at every level of automotive. And really for what it's about for me is helping the dealer create a better experience through the technologies, through the communication, using the right word tracks, trying to remember that the customers do this maybe once every three years or a couple of times in their lifetime, and they're doing it every day. So they have to have some empathy, which a lot of car guys forget about. They have it at home, but they come to work and it's an everyday thing for them. So that's a lot of what I do training wise.

Doug: 3:58

Now, Josh, what you didn't mention that you do is you are also our community's go-to guy when we are buying a car too.

Josh: 4:05

Yes.

Doug: 4:06

Because you have a lot of experience. And then we're like, oh my God, Josh, I got to buy a car. What do you think? And, man, you know, like I believe, at least once or twice a week for me this year, I'm talking to a client where car buying has come up and it's a big financial planning decision now, whereas a few years ago it was. I had a car payment, I paid my car off and then I have a car payment again, and that's really how it goes. It was still a financial planning decision then, but now it's a.

Doug: 4:32

I need to come up with 20 to $30,000 and try and figure out a payment that was larger than I would like and car insurance that is larger than I would like and repair bills that might be larger than I would like. So let's kind of hit this from a big picture point of view, right? So most of my clients are in their late 50s, 60s, and 70s. So I think, especially for my retired clients who are buying a car, this is really something that we have to kind of plan ahead for, right? So that's a conversation that we're having, hey, next five or 10 years, like, what's your story with your car? Then we have to put on a map somewhere a $50,000 expense and how we parse that, right. Jeremy, how have some of your experience has been with your clients this year in terms of car buying? Tell us about some of your conversations.

Jeremy: 5:15

Yeah, I'd say the number one question by far is, lease first buy. What should I do? Should I buy or should I lease? Right, they're probably coming out of a payment. You know they had their car for eight to 10 years and they bought a $30,000 car. Now the game has changed, now that $30,000 car is looking more like 50, 60, right, so that payment's a big number on a sheet. And so when they think about like, do I want to take on that kind of $1,000 car payment, well, is lease a better option now? So I think that's the number one question that comes up. Should I lease or should I buy?

Doug: 5:46

To kind of talk about demographics. It's our clients who are thinking about retirement, are retired, are kind of in the middle of it, right. So I think everybody gathered around this table is in their mid-40s-ish with kids, right. So it's just like, man, I got to plan around another expense and then you know our clients' grown kids trying to figure out their first car too. So I don't know, Josh, like this is kind of the mix of things and there's a whole bunch of stuff that we can talk about. So we could start wherever you want to start, or we can throw a topic out there and dig.

Josh: 6:15

Well, let's start there, because that seems to be the number one for your clients and I hear it regularly and both sides of the coin. I have an older car, a 2013, that I've had forever and I do a lot of driving. I've never bought a new car in my life and I've been in the car business half of my life, so there's a reason for that. Not that I would never buy a new car, it's just personally what I choose. My wife gets a new car every three years. She leases and I'm gonna go into some reasons why you would wanna lease, right. So she doesn't drive a lot. She wants all the newest safety features. She likes all the technical stuff. She doesn't like to do a lot of service on her car, so she wants to be in a new car every three years. A lease is and she does low miles. That is the perfect reason to lease. The payment is low. She doesn't have to put a lot of money down.

Josh: 7:06

For me, I like the older car. I have an older car that was probably 55 grand when it was brand new, probably worth somewhere around seven grand now, but I love it. I like the simple stuff. I do not like all the bells and whistles. So for someone who wants to have a simple vehicle or car to drive, I would say maybe an older car might make more sense for them, something that is not going to give you a lot of trouble as far as maintenance. You know a potentially non-domestic car Toyota, Honda, Acura. You know some of the Nissans, but usually the foreign makes are a little bit better. Kia and Hyundai have gotten a lot better these days with their newer vehicles. So it's really personal preference.

Josh: 7:45

I have people say to me listen, I'll never lease a car, I want to own my car. But the thing that I always remind them of is that unless you're paying cash for your car, the bank owns it until you make that last payment. So it's really important to understand that piece of it so that you know what you're getting into when you buy a car. So the lease versus buy. There are people that drive 40, I've seen and I've seen it all in the car business.

Josh: 8:07

There's people that drive 40,000 miles a year because they're doing pharmaceutical sales or they're driving a hundred miles both ways to get to their office. So that itch actually would be a reason to lease a car, because you're burning through the warranty and there's no reason why you're going to buy extended warranties and do all this maintenance. At the end of the three years, when you might have 140,000 miles on your car, or four years. You can do four-year leases as well. At that point you turn the car in, it's the dealership's problem and then you get into a new lease. You don't have to worry about losing the value of the vehicle. You don't have to worry about all the maintenance that needs to be done, the scratches, the nicks, the dings, the tires that are gone. Those are things that you don't necessarily have to worry about and the devalue of the vehicle.

Doug: 8:53

So let me ask you this question too. With auto prices being higher over the last three years especially, do you feel like you've seen any additional leaning towards leases or an additional leaning towards buying? Like how have you seen buyers change their habits over the last three years? 

Josh: 9:10

Yeah, so there's two things at play there. So one thing that buyers need to understand is that on a lease, you're not paying taxes on the entire vehicle, you're paying tax on the payment every month. At least in Massachusetts that's the way that it works. And that's the way I lived over the last 25 years in the car business. So that's a really important thing to understand. You don't have to put a lot of money down to get into a lease and then you have a, I don't want to say low payment, but a lower payment than putting $20,000 down and getting to the same payment as if you had to put two or $3,000 down.

Josh: 9:41

So what I've seen over the last couple of years through inventory shortages in COVID and prices going through the roof, $10,000 over MSRP, I think what made sense for a lot of consumers was to try and lease a vehicle. Because they know at the end of the three years they're not going to get crushed at the end of that, because if the value is not what it's worth at that point, what the car is worth because there's a residual value at the end of the lease, they just turn it in and they start over fresh when times are better. So I think it would have made more sense to do the lease over that period of time. But on the flip side, the payments were still high because the interest rates were higher as well. So the interest rate you're paying, which is called the money factor, which is basically your interest rate on a lease. So there really wasn't a great situation for the buyer over the last couple of years. But I think it made a lot more sense to go into a lease where at the end of those three years, you're done. You wash your hands and hope for better times at that point.

Josh: 10:37

But we did have people just coming in and purchasing cars and spending $10,000 over sticker. The problem that those people are going to run into is, if they finance the car or paid cash, they're going to be sitting on a car as the inventory comes back, which is what's happening right now. They're not going to be able to afford to get out of that car because when they go to trade it in, it's going to be worth potentially half of what they paid for it, where it would normally lose 10, 15, 20% of the value. Now it's losing almost 50% of the value because all of the prices have changed significantly in the market. That's another reason for leasing is, if you have a very, very volatile market and you don't know what's going to happen with it, you're going to ride the three years out and then you're going to make a decision at the end of those three years at that point. And you always have the option to buy the car too.

Doug: 11:26

So part of why we're doing this is Jeremy and I, we're giving advice every single day and not everybody has a Josh Sack to go to when there is a car buying question or a car question right. And I think one thing that you turned me on to this year is, I didn't realize this, but there are car buying advocates that are out there that can help you shop around a little bit, help you navigate buying a car, and actually make the car buying experience a little bit less lousy than you may have experienced in the past. Tell us a little bit of car buying agents, car buying advocates, which I know that was a concept that was brand new to me this year.

Josh: 12:02

Yeah, there's a couple of them out there. There's one person in particular that I've known for almost 15 years, that I actually worked with her. Her name is Esther Parks and her business is called Stressless Cars. And it's actually the perfect name, because one of the hardest things to do next to buying a house, the second largest purchase in people's lives, is going to be buying a car, right. So what's different about her is that she was in the car business for a very long time and very much like me, we just want to help people and we've tried to help people buy cars. Friends, family and I've been doing that forever, just because I've always felt it was the right thing to do, and I enjoy helping people.

Doug: 12:40

And you know, that's your brainpower and that's the data that you have between the ears that you can offer to everybody, which is great, and we appreciate that.

Josh: 12:47

And Esther made a business out of it. She's actually helped customers buy over a thousand cars just in the last year. And I talked to her about it and then that's when we got together and what I didn't realize is that she's actually not charging the customer anything. She's actually charging the dealership to bring them in. At first I didn't really think that made sense. But then when I started looking at the numbers, because I deal with the dealers on a regular basis, most of the time the dealers are, it costs them $600, $700 per customer that they bring in in marketing.

Josh: 13:21

She walks them through the doors and charges them a heck of a lot less than that. So they're not paying for any marketing. They don't have to get on the phone with vendors. They don't have to deal with the marketing companies. They're actually having someone walk a customer through the door. They don't have to have their business development center, the people on the phone, like when I was in the dealership, making calls, taking calls, paying those lead providers like Cars.com and CarGurus to send customers through the doors. She's walking them in.

Doug: 13:44

Meanwhile, somebody like myself or Jeremy or Matt, if we go to buy a car over the course of I don't know a month or so, we're probably going to a bunch of different dealerships right. Test driving different cars and what not.

Josh: 13:54

Talking to 10 people, maybe three people. 

Doug: 13:55

So really her job is to kind of get a deal done.

Josh: 13:59

Yeah, her job is to essentially find out what the person's looking for, get them teed up, which means help figure out their financial situation, help narrow down the specific vehicle that they want, and then bring them to the store when they're ready.

Josh: 14:15

Not to like, there’s lots of people that go into stores, like my dad, and torture the dealership. They enjoy doing it. They're old school guys. You know there's a lot of people out there that do it and they want to do it on their own. That's not the majority though. So, for the people that want some help and make it a fun, stressless experience. And it sounds like I'm plugging her, but I am, because I helped move people over to talk to her and they've told me what a great experience it is. So that's why I want to continue helping people do that. And I don't have the time anymore to walk people and friends and family into dealerships. So I'd be more than happy knowing it won't cost them a dime to hand them off to Esther and let her take them into the store, and I know they'll get taken care of.

Doug: 14:53

If you weren't going to pump her up, I will, because unfortunately my wife was driving for seven years a Mazda CX-5, went to go get, you know the story, went to go get brakes done. They said, hey miss, your brakes are fine, but your rear differential is gone. And I'm like, well, it's a dealership. They're clearly like making stuff up, right. And what's a rear differential right? So I had to figure out what that was and have somebody else take a look at it. And lo and behold, rear differential is a real thing and it's a really important thing for four-wheel drive cars and it needed to be replaced. But long story short, we had a car buyer advocate. After my wife explained to her what she wanted, we had a 9.30 appointment to drive exactly the car that she wanted to check out and she drove it out of there at 1.15.

Josh: 15:37

Yeah, and that's not uncommon with Esther, the way that she does things. She's very detailed, she really cares about what the customer's looking for and she wants to make sure that when that customer gets to the dealership they're sitting with the right person. So that's a big part of it. She has one specific person that her customers deal with, knowing it's Esther's customer and that the experience needs to be perfect or she's bringing them somewhere else next time.

Doug: 16:02

In case we forget to mention it later on, there's a website stresslesscars.com. Stresslesscars.com. If you want to check that out. JV, you're up. You got a question.

Jeremy: 16:12

Yeah, so I was just going to ask Josh, if let's just say you don't have an Esther and you're going alone, you do it yourself, or what are some of the things that you want to look out for? We've heard things like there's gap insurance offering or gap coverage, there's a wheel package, or some sort of other upsell that the dealership might make towards a customer. What are some of the things that you kind of make our listeners aware of?

Josh: 16:34

Great question, and I've done this a number of times myself, sent friends and family. And some of the first things that I would say is do your research. Don't overthink it. Think about what's important to you. Do you need an SUV? Do you need a car? Do you need a minivan? Figure those things out and then move on to looking at financing or leasing. Then pick your dealership of where you want to go. Look at the reviews. Don't look at one or two bad reviews, one or two good reviews. Look at a bunch of them and look for, potentially, a salesperson that is mentioned over and over again that the customers had a really good experience with. That's a great way to do things because, odds are, that person's been there a long time, they know their stuff, they're empathetic with the customer situation and they can help guide them. So, in regards to when you get to the dealership, it's not always something that you can control, but try not to go in on a weekend. Try not to go in at five, six, seven o'clock at night. Those are the times that typically are very busy. No one wants to have to sit and wait to talk to somebody about talking about buying a car. So I suggest calling ahead, trying to find that person that you want to deal with and then set an appointment for a time where you know that person's going to be there.

Josh: 17:50

If you are looking for a specific vehicle, make sure it's available. Make sure they have it and that you are able to test drive it. Don't buy a car without test driving it. It doesn't mean that there's something wrong with it, but every car is different, whether it's a new car or a used car.

Josh: 18:06

Get into the car, drive it, smell it, feel it, take it around the block at least once or twice. You don't have to go down the highway, hit the gas accelerator like you would drive the car when you own it. Make sure that that seat is really comfortable, because what you want to avoid especially if you got a bad back or a bad hip or whatnot, you want to really make sure that that is the right car for you. Doesn't mean you have to drive it for two hours. Just get into it and make sure you're comfortable in it before you make the decision that that's the vehicle that you want to buy. Those are really the suggestions that I would make. When it comes to the financing side of things, do some research. The dealership obviously wants you to finance with them.

Doug: 18:45

Let's talk about financing for a second too. I wanted to ask you about this because another headwind for car buying is not only is it more expensive, but we went from 1.9, 2.9, 3.9 to, you know, at best. I like looking at a DCU, a local bank, likes being in the auto loan business, generally has competitive rates, and even at best they're at five and a half right now, and home equity lines of credit are at six, sometimes seven. So what's the landscape like? Are there dealers that have deals out there?

Josh: 19:18

Yeah, so check your local credit unions. Check with your finance guy. If you don't have a finance guy, I suggest talking to one, or gal, I'd suggest talking to one. And just do some more research. Don't take the first rate that's offered to you. These days with dealerships, check the rates that they have available, because a lot of times if you're buying a certified car, there's a special rate from the manufacturer. Ask about the special rates on new cars or even pre-owned cars. They sometimes have those. Before you pull the trigger, make the purchase, just check with an outside bank. A lot of times the dealership will give you a lower rate just to match the rate that an outside credit union is giving because they want the business, because it's about volume for them. So, all in all, do your research all around. Learn a little bit about the dealership. Keep in mind, you know people say I don't want to buy a car here because I'm not going to service it here. You can service your car or get warranty work done at any manufacturer. As long as you're buying a Toyota, you can go to any Toyota dealership. So it's really important to make sure that you're buying from the right dealership and that you can go to any dealership that you want.

Josh: 20:29

That might maybe you didn't buy it as local. I like buying from a local dealership, but they're not always going to have the best price because they might be a smaller store and they don't have the inventory. So what I would say to the customer is go where the inventory is. So if you are looking for, let's just say, for instance, a Toyota Highlander, right. And I keep referencing Toyota because I grew up in a Toyota dealership, was the place that I was at for roughly about 10 of my years in the car business. So go where the inventory is. It's better to have a choice of those vehicles.

Josh: 20:59

Some dealerships can go and find cars for you. I prefer to see the vehicle that is on the lot. It might be something that's incoming. Just make sure you go through all of the different features that you want and it's all down on paper. There's not a lot of fraud these days as far as people are scared of dealerships. If you do your research and you go in, find somebody that has a personality that matches your speed and that you're comfortable with. If you feel the pressure. I'm not saying walk out. Just don't pull the trigger that day and buy the car. Take a little bit of time, think about it. It's a big decision.

Doug: 21:34

JV, what's next on your question list?

Jeremy: 21:36

I think I wanted to ask about the big buzzword of 2025, and it is the word tariff.

Josh: 21:45

Yes. So different manufacturers are affected differently. You look at Ford, you look at BMW. They have locked in their pricing and have not adjusted pricing due to the tariffs. I think that's great.

Josh: 22:01

Not all manufacturers have been able to do that, so that's another thing to do your research on. Find out, look at the MSRP sticker price of a vehicle from maybe a couple of months ago and look at one today. If you have a $2,000 to $3,000 price increase because of tariffs, that's a real thing. And the thing you have to remember is that at some point the tariff situation is going to go away not completely, but it will come down and the prices will come back down on vehicles. So keep in mind, if you're paying $3,000 more, that that is value that you're immediately going to lose on top of the additional depreciation. So it might be another reason for leasing.

Josh: 22:06

That way in the next three years, if you're doing a three-year lease, all of that inequity in your vehicle goes away, but it doesn't mean that you have to lease. You just have to be conscious of it. It may make sense to buy a used car instead of a new car, something a couple of years old. But then you also have to keep in mind that because the new car prices have gone up, more people are going to buy used cars, so 

Doug: 22:28

Drives the demand up and those prices go up. 

Josh: 22:30

But on top of that the customer has to remember as well their trade value is going up too, because that is going to potentially turn into a car on the dealer's lot that they can charge more money for. So if you're paying more for the new car or the used car, you should be getting more for your trade.

Doug: 22:45

So good segway, trade-ins. A lot of people always wonder, okay, what should I do with my car? Am I going to get underpriced if I go to the dealer? Should I be looking at Carvana, CarMax? What do you suggest when it comes to trading in your car?

Josh: 22:58

Yeah, another great question. So you have a number of different options. So I'm going to kind of go through the different segments. So if you have a car that you own or you have a loan on and you're going to go in and trade that car in. And you know, like you did, that your wife's car needed $9,000 of work, that's something for you to know. That is the dealer's responsibility. It's not something that you need to walk in and say, oh, I need to trade my car, it needs $9,000 of work. Because what does that mean immediately? You're going to lose $9,000 of value on your vehicle. That is not something that you need to divulge. You're not hiding anything. You do not need to feel bad about it. You bring that car in. You're trading it as it is. You have no responsibility. As it like if you were selling that to a private sale somebody coming to buy your car, you have to make sure that that vehicle is safe to drive. You have to make sure it passes inspection. You're selling it to a dealership, there's a reason you're trading, selling it to a dealership, because you are going to wash your hands of that car and it's now the dealership's responsibility. So I would say, just be careful on how much information you give. You're not lying. You just don't have to give all that information to the dealership.

Josh: 24:03

The other side of that is people will turn their leases in and what these days, especially after the whole COVID inventory, we'll say crisis, what a lot of people don't understand. And this is a personal situation for me, because we just turned in a lease that, because I'm a car guy, I know that her car, was my wife's car, was worth about $6,000 more than what the residual value is. And I'll just go back to what residual value is, that is the set value of what the vehicle is going to be when you turn that lease in. It does not take into market conditions. Market conditions were in our favor, which means inventory was scarce. So her car was $6,000 more than what we were going to be turning it in for. So we knew that and we said to the dealer how much equity is in the car. So we actually had $6,000 to play with as money down on her next lease or putting some money down on the lease and taking a, you can actually take a check back.

Doug: 25:02

If you had not pointed that out, would that $6,000 have come up?

Josh: 25:08

That $6,000 will go into the dealership's revenue is what would happen. Because that dealership is buying that car from the leasing company and they are going to resell it on their lot. So now they own that car for $6,000 less than what the market value is, and the next person that's going to come in is going to buy that car for not just the $6,000 more than what the trading value is, but money on top of that. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just it's the way that the market is. Dealerships are buying the car right, just like there was nothing wrong with us going in and asking the dealership for the $6,000.

Doug: 25:41

But if you know your car might be in that situation, you bring it up. You may actually get the quote, we'll call it credit towards your next lease.

Josh: 25:46

Exactly. And then there's so there's the CarMax and the Carvana thing. So dealerships are in a very tough spot right now because CarMax and Carvana they're overpaying for cars because they need the inventory. Because it's scarce and they don't have the means for trade-ins. They're buying it off, they're typically buying it off the street from people. And they're doing a lot of advertising. You'll see it on Facebook, all different social medias. You'll see advertisements and they'll overpay. So now dealerships are combating that and saying we'll match Carvana, but they're hurting themselves by doing that.

Josh: 26:17

So if you're just thinking about selling your car, go get a quote from Carvana, go get a quote from CarMax, and use that to your advantage. Now keep in mind that if you're trading a car, you need to get that much more from CarMax or Carvana because you have a tax savings. So if the car is $20,000 and your car is worth $10,000, you're now paying tax on $10,000 instead of $20,000. So you need to get a couple thousand dollars more than what your trading would have been to make it make sense. So those are just some of the things that you want to think about trading in your car.

Josh: 26:48

You can wash your car. You can do a little bit of you know vacuum the interior, make it look good. Do not spend lots of money on putting new tires, on doing brakes, doing the exhaust system. That car is either going to auction for the dealership or they're going to run it through their shop regardless. It's their responsibility, they have to do that. So what you have to do is just get that car to the dealership, let them look at it, and get a value.

Doug: 27:12

So, Josh, we're here in a jam-packed, fairly densely packed, we'll call it more urban than suburban Watertown, right. We can walk around. So you know, we're fortunate that we live in an area of Massachusetts where you don't necessarily need a car. You can get around by walking, bus, bike, and what have you. We talked a little bit about alternatives to owning a car, right, and there is this huge push for, you know, people not taking public transportation during COVID. We're not back to those levels of public transportation yet. You know, you've turned us on to some things like FlexCar and Toro and some other sort of alternative ways to approach, maybe not owning a car, but having access to a car. Talk us through that a little bit.

Josh: 27:55

So there's the unconventional stuff like you know, you've got Toro, which is a rental car company. We've used it before. It's great. 

Doug: 28:01

It's like the Airbnb for cars, right?

Josh 28:03 

It's the best way to explain it.

Doug: 28:04

Toro. T-O-R-O.

Josh: 28:07

Yeah, and they have an app. It's really easy. You can pick whatever car you want. They have cars that are anywhere from like 2009 all the way up to brand new cars. Prices all over the place, very easy to access. These are private owners that are essentially renting their car out. It has to go through safety inspections so you know you're getting something that is good. There's reviews. You look over the reviews.

Doug: 28:26

I guess also something you could do with your car if you don't drive it all the time, right. Is you could put it on Toro and have other people beat it up.

Josh: 28:33

I could, but nobody drives my 2013 but me. So some of the other unconventional ways to get around are going to be a zip car. You can do that. And listen if you don't want to run, ride your bike, ride one of the scooters that you see everybody on, or an e-bike, you know, some of the things that you can do are you can rent those cars for that short period of time. It's not something that's great for long-term because typically it's more than a payment if you're doing that for more than a month or so.

Josh: 29:04

But if you're just looking to get around for a month or two and you don't necessarily need a car payment, it might make sense to just try it out. It's also a good way to try a car. So if you want to go rent a car for a month, like you're looking at that, let's go back to the Honda, right? Let's say you want to try out an EV and a test drive just isn't going to do it for you. So you go find a you know Honda EV prologue and you drive it for a couple of days and you get really comfortable with it or you realize it's not for you. That's a good way to do things too, you know, before you end up buying a car.

Doug: 29:33

That's a great idea too, especially, you know, let's say, you're in an accident or you have some sort of, like my wife, high ticket repair and you're just not ready yet. That's a great idea to do on the research where you're like, hey, fine, it's a sunk cost to go rent two or three different cars through Toro for the month. But did some research, found the car I liked, and then maybe you can call a stresslesscarscom and say, hey, I know, I want a Honda Prologue or whatever it is.

Josh 29:59 

And people are taking a longer time to make decisions, which I think makes sense. They're doing more research. They're looking at those reviews. They're looking at a couple of different dealerships. They’re researching prices. They're now researching the trade-ins as well. One of the things that I help dealers with is their longer term follow-up when someone inquires about a car. What I look at is in their CRM, their lead management systems. I can actually see and guide them on how long they should be following up with a customer. Because what we've seen recently is that buying process elongated. So just recently we've seen the buying process moving from when a customer inquires to having it be 1.5 to three days, like it's been. It's actually gone to seven days and then 14 days.

Josh: 30:42

So, that means the dealership needs to expend more person power to follow up with that customer. They need to manage their technology quicker. And that's another reason for them to go work with Esther, because they don't have to manage all of that. It's just somebody walking in, bringing a customer in that's kind of teed up, ready to go. But it's really important for these dealers to understand their customers and, like we're doing today, for the customer to understand the dealership and where they want to buy that car and do the research.

Doug: 31:10

Sounds like that's also a sign that maybe people are thinking twice about upgrading from their car too, if they still have a drivable vehicle. Like a need versus a want.

Josh: 31:18

Yeah, it's a lot of it is becoming a lifestyle decision and where they are right now. There's people out there with you know hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars that are just making the decision to hold off for a little while, because they don't necessarily need to buy that car at this point right now. They want to feel like they got a good deal and they know what the market conditions. They're not necessarily going to get that right now.

Doug: 31:40

Let's tackle maybe one more topic and then I think we can move on to our favorite part, the dad jokes, and wrap it up. We haven't talked about EVs and hybrid cars. Be great to get a couple cents from you on what you're seeing in that environment, because clearly a lot of that has changed in the last year or so.

Josh: 31:56

Hybrids are a great option right now, the hybrid plug-in as well, because you have really the best of both worlds. You know gas mileage is probably with everything going on right now, and not just the industry, but the world globally, you never know what's going to happen with gas. But it's not just about the gas, it's about you know infrastructure as well. Personally, we just bought an EV. It's the first EV we ever bought, so I'll talk a little bit about that. I never thought that I would want to drive an EV. If you're thinking about it, get into one and drive one. I was blown away by the drive. I was concerned about the infrastructure and we made the decision to do it. We didn't do a heck of a lot of research, but I was pleasantly surprised that, specifically in Watertown, there are actually about seven stations that were initially free over the last year. You can actually go to the station, plug your car in, and charge for free. They just did away with a lot of that in Watertown, but the infrastructure is pretty good. There are one or two places that are private that still offer free charging, so that's huge. There's one of those right by our house in Watertown and I would say we've probably saved ourselves a couple grand in charging already because we have not had to pay for any charge whatsoever.

Josh: 33:14

When you buy an EV, there's a couple of different options. When you buy the car, most manufacturers give you the option of taking some money. They give you some money for installing a home charger. We opted not to do that because we had that infrastructure locally that was free charging. What we chose to do, the other option was, they give you a $750 worth of charging credits.

Josh: 33:32

So that's the EV side of things. The hybrid side of things, it's a little bit more comfortable for someone who hasn't necessarily driven or bought an EV before and is not comfortable making that transition to EV right away. I have a friend that bought his first EV hybrid plug-in and he's driving 400, 600 miles, sometimes with just one tank of gas because he's using the EV side of things and charging up, which is very inexpensive. The charge is to get a full charge, we get 280 miles. My buddy gets about 240 miles on his car and you can go longer. You have that peace of mind as well.

Josh: 34:10

I think they're both great options. But again you have to look at the infrastructure of where you are and where you live and are you taking long trips? We take long trips from time to time. It takes a little more planning. If you are someone that does not like to plan, like me, my wife does so luckily she helps with the EV, gotta plan out where the charging stations are. So you're not gonna take a trip out to six hours into Vermont or Canada without being able to stop. You need to find somewhere to stop and plan it out because you do not wanna fall into getting stressed out on your trip because you don't know where the next station is that you could charge.

Doug: 34:45

That's probably a perfect final segway here too, because, again, where we started off, buying a car is a very different financial planning decision than it was just five years ago. So, if you're one of our clients and listening or you're listening to this for the first time, if you plan on buying a car within the next three to five years, I would start planning that out today. In three to five years, it would probably be a very different set of circumstances than it is right now, be it interest rates, be it what the whole car industry is like, right, Josh?

Josh: 35:14

Yep.

Doug: 35:15

But if all the dynamics are the same, I would want to have a good three to five year plan, if you can, to figure out, okay, how am I going to budget for my next car? Because the way it stands right now, we're watching most folks put sizable down payments on new cars. It is one of those buckets you probably should have right now.

Doug: 35:32

So Jeremy and I are often talking to our clients about buckets. There is the bill paying bucket, the cash reserves bucket. Way over here on the right hand side, there is a retirement bucket, and there's a bunch of these, hey, I'm still working, I'm still at peak everything and I'm not retiring for 15 years, sorts of buckets. Which could be the vacation bucket, the home improvement bucket, maybe the new home bucket. Really should have a new auto purchase bucket as one of your buckets nowadays, because you're very likely going to have to come up with a good chunk of change if you do want to own your vehicle versus lease. Josh, thanks, I feel like we got a lot of like really interesting tidbits covered the bases. 

Josh: 36:06

Thanks for having me. 

Doug: 36:07

Could even probably have a part two to this.

Jeremy: 36:08

Yeah, definitely.

Doug: 36:10

Now you get to experience the most fun thing that we have, which is you get to see if you can actually figure out one of Jeremy's dad jokes.

Josh: 36:17

All right, I've got dad jokes, so let's go.

Jeremy: 36:20

I know you guys are making it harder for me. You add more people to the mix. So hold on, daddy, don't try to be cool. Don't try to be cool, bro, with your dad jokes. All right, I got two today. In true fashion, I made it specific and relevant. So, Josh, for you. What do you call a used car salesman? 

Josh 36:44

Oh boy.

Doug: 36:48

I got 15 names right out of the hat.

Josh: 36:50

Oh, I hope my car guy buddies will never listen to this because I will be crucified. 

Jeremy: 36:56

They might actually enjoy this. 

Josh 36:57

Yeah, they might. They might at my expense. I'm torn. I mean there's a thousand different answers, so I'm just going to ask, what is it?

Jeremy: 37:07

A car-deal-ologist.

Doug: 37:10

Wow.

Josh: 37:11

That is an ultimate dad joke right there.

Doug: 37:15

That's particularly awful.

Josh: 37:17

Yeah, our kids would torture us over that.

Doug: 37:19

If you told that to Jake, you would get punched in a body part you don't want to get punched.

Josh: 37:22

No doubt, no doubt. For sure. 

Doug: 37:25

I love that. Nice job. That was good.

Jeremy: 37:28

Nice, one more. And what's the difference? Not in the same ballpark on relevancy but. What's the difference between black eyed peas and chickpeas? 

Josh: 37:40

I got nothing, nothing. But I can tell it's going to be a tag joke answer.

Doug: 37:45

Matt, you got something?

Matt: 37:49

Can't get there.

Doug: 37:51

What do we got?

Jeremy: 37:52

Black eyed peas can sing us a song, chickpeas can hum us one.

Doug: 37:56

Hum us. Wow. What a perfect one to have to here in Watertown on Mount Auburn Street, the hummus capital of New England. Oh my God.

Jeremy: 38:09

A little baba, a little baba. 

Doug: 38:10

I love that. A little baba ganoush. Josh Sack, thanks for hanging out. Do you have a website up for your company or no?

Josh: 38:18

I do not yet. No, it's just sackmanconsulting at gmail.com.

Doug: 38:22

Sackmanconsulting at gmail.com, in case you have a car question for Josh. If you're looking into that whole car buying advocate type of model, it's stresslesscars.com. If you have a question for Jeremy or myself, we can be reached at info at arsenalfinancial.com or you can always call our office at 781-335-9100. Thanks again to Watertown's own Matt Hanna for producing a podcast and thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.

Speaker 4: 38:52

Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor, member FINRA, SIPC. The information in this podcast is educational and general in nature. It does not take into consideration the listener's personal circumstances. Therefore, it is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized financial, legal, or tax advice. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a final decision.