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In today's rapidly evolving automotive landscape, the decision to purchase a car involves more than just picking a model you like. With factors such as fluctuating fuel prices, environmental concerns, and a diverse range of financing options, making the right choice can be daunting. In this post, we share our journey to finding the perfect vehicle, starting with the critical decision of electric vs. gasoline, followed by a detailed examination of whether to buy outright or lease.

I want to add a quick post on the latest Equifax data leaks. It seems like this data breach affected about 50% of the Americans. The information stolen included social security number, address, date of birth and driver license. This information is sufficient to to forge any person (to open credit cards, bank accounts ... you name it). Indeed this is a very serious breach.

I would like to take advantage of the low mortgage rates and buy a home. But, even with supreme effort I have been unable to come up wit the required capital. So, I have been thinking of investing in REIT. As a staunch believer of vanguard, I have been looking into Vanguard REIT Index Fund (VGSIX). REITs are not strongly correlated with the overall market (correlation stands at 0.74), in a sense it gives me defensive diversification. The yields are also awesome. I believe VGSIX has yield of ~4.8%. This would contribute immensely to my passive income stream. It has a expense ratio of 0.26% which is slightly on the higher side (as compared to other funds in my portfolio). I would keep REITs at 5% of my overall portfolio. I would probably start out with VNQ and once I have 3000 I can switch to VGSIX. BTW, on vanguard ETFs trade for free.

I own a scottrade brokerage account. I am excited about this buy. The only negative I can think of is the 9.99$ trade (scottrade is 7 bucks). Scottrade's DRIP (they call it FRIP) is one of the worst I have seen. TD Ameritrade has a much better DRIP. I also look forward to a lot more research material (scottrade's stock market research offerings are limited).