‘Horrible, Horrible, Horrible’: Dave Ramsey Shreds a Debt-Free Retiree’s Plan to Lease a New Car Every 3 Years

Max, a 70-year-old retiree from Ohio, called The Ramsey Show with what sounded like a perfectly sensible plan. He and his wife were debt-free, carried no mortgage, and kept enough savings to comfortably afford a new car outright. His idea: lease a fresh vehicle every three years, return it at term’s end, and start over. His reasoning, in his own words: “If I get a new car every 3 years, I’m not gonna have as much to worry about.”

Dave Ramsey’s response was blunt: “Don’t lease it. No, no. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. Did I mention it’s horrible?”

The Verdict: Leasing Costs More, and the Math Proves It

Leasing is, by Ramsey’s measure, the single most expensive way to operate a car, and it does not solve the problem Max thought it would. Two separate issues explain why his plan falls apart.

The maintenance argument collapses first. A lease does not include maintenance. Oil changes, tires, brakes, and wiper blades come out of the lessee’s pocket exactly as they would with an owned car. The reason a new vehicle feels low-hassle in the first three years is the factory warranty, and that warranty applies whether you buy or lease. Max would have been paying a lease premium for a benefit he was already entitled to by default.

The pricing structure is where the real financial damage accumulates. As Ramsey put it: “100% of the loss in value is built into the lease. So whatever you would lose by buying a new car and trading it every 3 years, you’re paying for in the lease.” The leasing company calculates what the car will be worth at turn-in, charges the lessee the full drop in value, then adds dealer profit, cost of capital, and interest on top. Ramsey calls these arrangements “fleeces” rather than leases, arguing that back-calculating the implied cost of capital from a typical lease payment structure yields an effective rate averaging around 14.2%.

Depreciation: The Cost You Cannot Escape

Cars are depreciating assets, and they lose value fastest in the early years. Ramsey’s rule of thumb: a new car loses roughly 60% of its value in the first five years. Apply that to a $100,000 vehicle and the car is worth roughly $40,000 by year five. He calls it “burning cash.”

For someone committed to driving a new car every three years, two paths exist.

1. Cash purchase, resell at year three. You write a check for the sticker price, absorb the depreciation, then sell or trade the car before writing another check. You take the loss in value directly. That is the ceiling on your cost.
2. Three-year lease. You pay the same depreciation built into your monthly payment, plus the dealer’s profit, plus the financing cost baked into the money factor. That is depreciation plus a premium, paid every month.

Same car. Same three years. The lease costs more every single time. The only thing you avoid is the hassle of selling the used vehicle yourself, and a simple dealer trade-in solves that problem for a far smaller fee than what a lease charges.

Ramsey’s own research into millionaire habits reinforces the point. He found that 82% of millionaires have never had a car loan or lease, and instead pay cash for their vehicles. Of the remaining 18% who did finance a car, most described it as one of their biggest financial mistakes.

The Variable That Changes the Answer

The factor that matters most is whether you can write a check for the full purchase price. If you can, Ramsey’s alternative is straightforward: “If you’re a multimillionaire and you want to go buy a $100,000 car, go buy a car. Just write a check. And then 3 years later, if you feel like that car is getting old, then write another check.” He acknowledged doing a version of this himself, buying a new Ford Bronco with the Raptor package and accepting the depreciation hit without regret.

For everyone else, a broader question looms: does a new car fit your budget at all? The average transaction price for a new vehicle climbed to $49,855 in July 2026, a 2026 high, according to Kelley Blue Book. Financing that purchase compounds the loss from depreciation with interest charges. The average credit card APR across all accounts stands near 21%, and while auto loans are considerably cheaper at around 7% for a 60-month new-car loan, the average monthly payment has climbed to $770, per Experian data for Q1 2026. Adding interest to depreciation is how a $40,000 sedan quietly becomes a $55,000 sedan by the time it rolls off the lot.

The affordability squeeze is showing up across the market. Nearly 36% of new-car loans in Q1 2026 ran longer than six years, according to Experian, as buyers stretched repayment timelines to hold monthly payments down. Longer terms reduce the monthly bite but increase total interest paid and raise the risk of going underwater on the loan before the vehicle is paid off.

What to Do Before You Sign

Run three numbers before you commit to anything at a dealership.

First, estimate the three-year depreciation. Look up the car’s projected residual value at year three on Kelley Blue Book or Edmunds. That figure is your true cost of ownership for the period, before any financing charges are added.

Second, compare the lease’s total payments to that depreciation number. When the lease costs more than the depreciation alone, the gap represents what you are paying for dealer profit and financing charges. That gap is the price of convenience.

Third, decide whether you can pay cash. If yes, buy and trade at year three. If no, the smarter move is typically a two-to-three-year-old used vehicle, where someone else has already absorbed the steepest portion of the depreciation curve.

Leasing bundles depreciation with profit and interest, hands you the bill, and repackages the whole arrangement as a tidy monthly payment. Ramsey’s word for that fits.

Editor’s note: The average new-car transaction price has been updated to $49,855, reflecting the July 2026 high reported by Kelley Blue Book, and the average monthly car payment has been updated to $770, per Experian Q1 2026 data. Additional context has been added on Ramsey’s characterization of the implied lease interest rate and Experian data showing that nearly 36% of new-car loans in Q1 2026 ran longer than six years. The statistic about the 18% of millionaires who did finance a car calling it a financial mistake has also been added.

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