After graduation from my Master's program, I thought I would reward myself with a new car. I called ahead, told them what car I wanted to look at, told the guy to have it ready... and when I went there for my appointment, that guy was nowhere to be seen, no car was ready to drive and the new salesman decided to waste my time by selling me a car. Instead of starting with the car I walked in there to buy, he sat me down and started asking me what payment I could afford.
My response was essentially: "Wut?" I had been prepared to pay cash, so this backwards way of thinking didn't compute for me. I said: What terms can you offer me? It was hard to shake him off his script, though.
Then he asks, "What's wrong with your current car?"
I just stared at him and then said, "Nothing. It's old. I wanted a new one. But now that you mention it, I guess that's silly. I'll keep driving my old one." And I walked out. I ended up not buying a new car for 5 more years.
I wrote a newsletter about how buying a truck in December can save business owners on their taxes (trucks weighing more than 6,000 lbs have favorable deduction rules), which is great because you can combine it with debt-financing and year end sales and get a smoking deal on a truck. Sure, you have to pay for it eventually, but whatevs.
This topic ended up being my most popular post ever on my silly tax blog - it got probably 20 times more views than anything I've ever written about before. I got five phone calls from clients who read the newsletter and wanted to discuss this BUY TRUCKS tax strategy. I feel oddly guilty about it.