I'm just getting ready to start the podcast and it's an interesting one. I've got it all, you know, all my notes down and everything. But before I came in here to do that, I had YouTube on on the television and I saw Billy Eilish to a video called What Am I Made For? Which is from the Barbie movie.
And the video was a live performance that she did in Chicago with probably 20 or 30,000 young people watching her. And I'm not affected by things like, well, yes, I am, but I have to tell you, I got to see that movie. I wasn't going to go. I had no interest in seeing the Barbie movie, but now I've got to see it.
And I've got to listen to more Billy Eilish. Music, I really, really do. But let's get the podcast started, shall we? And how are you doing?
Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the Daily Grateful. I am Michael Croce and I am here to, I am here to, I'm here to inspire you. I don't know.
I don't know if I'm that very inspiring, but I had a very nice conversation with someone today, someone in their 30s. And they were saying they're going to buy a car and it's going to be the very first time they've ever had car payments. And they're very worried about budgeting all of that in. And I mean, to the point where she doesn't want to get the car, her husband wants to get the car, they need the car.
They have kids, they need the car. I'm saying, yeah, I can relate to all of that stuff. And I sat and I thought about it. And, you know, and she's saying, you have the Daily Grateful.
Yeah. Well, what am I supposed to be grateful about? Stressing about car payments. And I said, yeah, you know, I haven't had car payments in a very, very, very long time.
I mean, I've had car payment payments. I don't buy new cars very often. The last car payment I had on a new car, a brand new car was a, oh, my goodness, gracious. 1992.
Oh, man, that was a long time ago. Kia Sophia. This is when Kia first came to America and there was this Kia dealership out on US 19 and I needed a new car. My car was old and I needed a new car.
So I stopped in there. They said, oh, Kia's are great. I'd never heard of Kia. They, they're, you know, they were brand new to this country, but very popular in Korea.
And I said, OK, that's good. And they said, this is our base model. This is the Kia Sophia and it's, you know, everything I wanted. I had a five speed manual transmission.
I was young. I liked five speed manual transmissions and I, and I bought the car and I had car payments. It was a brand new car right off the lot. Car payments right off the lot.
I had car payments. Now at that time, I owned a house and my mortgage payments were, they weren't all that much. They were like $700 a month, which seems like a lot, but it was a four bedroom, two bath house and I could afford it. But, you know, when we stuck the car payment on top of that and you see, I've never been one to use credit.
I, I've always been taught pay as you go and then you don't know. That's what I've always been bought. I've had car payments before this one. I've had car payments since this one.
But, you know, for the most part, I would pay cash or a car or if I had car payments, I would pay them off and just go like that. And so I had this car and I had payments on it. And I really enjoyed that car when I drove it off the lot and I drove home and, you know, then I didn't enjoy the car so much because I said, Oh, and I don't even remember how much the car payment was, but it was higher than any car payments I'd had before. And that was stressful.
And I sat there and I thought about it and a friend of mine was talking to me about it. And she said, listen, the car payments allowed you to buy a brand new car. You can afford the car payments. They allowed you to buy a brand new car.
And that was something that I was grateful for. I had the credit. I could get car payments and go with that. Okay.
And if you don't have car payments, you're not able to afford to buy a car. Some people, you know, I mean, some people just can not. My son and his girlfriend just got a car car payments. If they didn't have car payments, they wouldn't have a car.
They got a nice car, but they got car payments. That's, yeah, it's just one of those things. And having that car gives you freedom. And that's something to be grateful for because you can go to the store whenever you want to go to the store.
You can go everywhere. You can take your kids to school. You can take your kids to work. You can go to work, all of these things.
So you can be grateful that you have car payments. If you worked them into your budget properly, you can be grateful to have car payments. I have not, you know, I had car after the Kia Sophia, which eventually became my daughter's first car, which she eventually totaled. Gone lower.
I financed a Dodge Caravan because I had all of a sudden five kids and I needed a Dodge. I needed, you know, something to cart them around them. So I did that. And then I paid it off.
And after that, what did I, oh, I bought a convertible. These then Mrs. Croes wanted a convertible. And then after that, I just said, you know what, I'm like done with car payments.
I'm also done buying new cars. I stopped buying new cars. I learned as soon as you pull the car off the lot, it loses a bunch of value. My last newest car was a, it was a Hyundai Santa Fe.
It was a 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe. And when I bought it, it had 14,000 miles on it. And I saved a bunch of money off of retail by doing that. I also paid cash for it, you know, because I had the cash.
I paid the, I paid it off. So I didn't do that. Now right now I'm driving an old beat up truck and I'm seeing, you know, everybody says nobody has money. Well, I am seeing all these new cars everywhere.
You know how you can tell they're new cars. Kia, for instance, has a new logo logo. There's these new colors that never existed in cars. There's like a gray, there's a gray thing going on out there with several variations and there's just, you can tell new cars.
I want one of those cars in a cool color. I do, but that's going to mean car payments. And, you know, I don't have the money I used to have, but people are doing this, but I'm not going to buy one new and I'm not going to do this anytime soon. But I guess I'm going to have car payments and then I'm going to be grateful that I have car payments because I'll have a nice car to drive to Michigan with.
Do I want to drive to Michigan? Why not? What the heck? I've been to Michigan since 2007 and I flew there, though, which is when I flew there, I rented a Hyundai Santa Fe in Detroit.
And that's when I decided I was going to buy a new one and I came home and I came home and I didn't buy a new one. You know, just I bought one from a car rental company. They had 17. Boom.
That was good. I want another new car. I don't know what I want, but I want one of those cool colors and I'll drive it to Michigan. Or maybe New Jersey or maybe Arizona.
Yeah, Arizona. I'm going to drive to Arizona and I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to do that. Go listen to Billie Eilish and have a great day and just kind of remember that there's always something to be grateful about. This young couple is sweating so hard having to have car payments.
I mean, you know, the kids and she is just her, especially just sweating it, but they've worked out the budget. They know they can do it. And I think when she has a car that she can cart her kids around in, she'll be grateful. It's just something that we have to do or make a lot of money and pay cash work.
Yeah, that's what I used to do. I used to make a lot of money and I'd pay cash. See you tomorrow.