So what should she do, buy or lease? Well. let's calculate. If she drives 20 miles a weekend she will spend another $250 a year on gas, oil, car washing, etc.

If she buys she will spend $29,195 (including tax) over 5 years in car payments, maintenance, and insurance. If she sells the car for $12,000 at the end of 5 years her cost of usage comes out to $33.07 per day.

If she leases she will spend $26,679 (including tax) over 5 years in lease payments, maintenance, and insurance. If she gets a rebate of $4,500 at the end of 5 years her cost of usage comes out to $42.65 per day.

So it will seem as if buying is cheaper than leasing. However, the question of whether she should buy or lease is wrong. The question is: should she have a car at all? I asked her why doesn't she simply use her husband's car on the weekends? She said she didn't want to have to worry whether he needed it for any reason, she wants to be able to go shopping whenever she wants without asking anyone for favors.

Here is where I got offensive. I said only an idiot would lay out thousands of dollars a year because they want to be independent. In my article When should children leave home? I pointed out that children who live with their parents do better economically than those who leave the nest simply because "they want to be independent."

If she wants to be able to do shopping and get her hair done without worry then she can simply call a cab. In Bayonne it costs $13.50 to be picked up and dropped off. So instead of buying a car and spending about $33 a day, she can get to errands twice a day for a lot less. She can save even more if she puts the difference in a money market fund. As I mentioned earlier, if she bought a car she would be laying out more than $490 a month for car payments, insurance, gas, etc. If instead she used a cab 32 times during the month (16 trips to and from home) she would have $270 a month extra to put into a money market account.

Let's take a low rate of say 3.25% per year. At the end of 5 years she would have $17,232 in her account (I've taken out 25% of her yearly interest earnings for Federal taxes).

So here is the real difference between owning and using a cab:

Owning: Spend $29,195 for 5 years and then, if lucky, sell the car for $12,000. Actual cost of owning a car for 5 years: $17,195.

Riding a cab: Spend the same $29,195 for 5 years ($216 per month for (for cabs) + $270 (into money market) each month) and have $17,232 in a bank account which nets out to $11,963 to ride a cab for 5 years.

Riding a cab during the 5 years is $5,269 cheaper than owning a car for this young lady. By the way, I pointed out that since she is 25 years old, if she continued using a cab until she retired at age 65, at the current interest rate she would have almost a quarter of a million dollars in the bank. Is having a car when you want it on the weekends worth that much money over using a cab?

There's no rocket science here: simply do the math.

The very wealthy do not need to ask my advice, certainly they can afford to hire financial experts for that. So then why is it that they tend to do stupid, idiotic things anyway?

Here is an email comparing renting and buying love:

Here is the math on the Paul McCartney-Heather Mills divorce:

After 5 years of marriage, he paid her $49 million. Assuming he got sex every night during their 5 year relationship (which would NOT have happened!) it ended up costing him $26,849 per tumble.

This is Heather. As you will notice, quite the little psycho bitch...

On the other hand, Elliot Spitzer's call girl, Kristen, an absolute stunner with a body like no other, charges $4,000 an hour. For anything!

This is Kristen.

Had Paul McCartney 'employed' Kristen for 5 years, he would've paid $7.3 million for an hour of sex every night for 5 years (a saving of $41.7 million).

Value-added benefits are: a 22 year old hot babe, no begging, no coaxing, never a headache, plays all requests, ability to wrap both legs around you, no bitching and complaining or 'to do' lists. Best of all, she leaves when you're done, and comes back when you ask her. All at 1/7th the cost, with no legal fees.

Sometimes renting makes far more sense.

Anyone thinking that Heather was worth the extra money doesn't have a leg to stand on.