Cliff notes - I am selling two vehicles and buying one to replace them. Expecting $12-14k cash from the sales - new-used vehicle is $18,400 financed at 3.24%/60mo. I was initially planning on putting sale proceeds towards the loan, then just paying the vehicle off in a few months to have no loan. Then I checked my employer's stock (FIS) and it has gone from $20 to $65 in five years, and ~$54 to $65 in the last year. We are still growing, and there's no obvious indication that this growth should change.
I have max'd out the employee match on my 401k already (50% up to 6%, so 3%). I didn't have the financial overhead for stocks when I was hired, but I do now. We have a 30% incentive after one year, i.e. if I were to take $10k (or whatever number up to my cap - I am not sure what my annual cap is) and purchase FIS stock, after one year I get 30% back in cash or additional stock.
I don't like having a car loan, but if I can drop $10k now and get $3k in a year, it seems foolish to not consider. Is there something I may be missing, or might this be something I should seriously consider?