Less Aircraft Owner Stress? Set Up Your Reserve Funds This Way

Learn how to let your maintenance, overhaul, and other reserve funds grow themselves for you.

Jason Depew

Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 10:30 AM ET

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Needing money for repairs is a necessary evil of aircraft ownership. [File Photo: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

Aircraft ownership necessitates setting aside significant reserve funds for maintenance and engine overhauls, which typically offer little room for initial savings.
Instead of letting these funds sit in low-interest bank accounts, owners should actively invest them in brokerages (e.g., index funds) to combat inflation and leverage compounding interest.
This investment strategy allows reserve funds to grow, potentially reaching financial goals for major expenses, like an engine overhaul, significantly sooner than simply saving.
Achieving financial goals ahead of schedule provides aircraft owners with valuable flexibility, enabling them to fund upgrades, reduce future contributions, or secure options for the next overhaul.

See a mistake? Contact us.

In case you missed the last couple weeks, we’ve been using an aircraft costs calculator to optimize and reduce the expenses of owning an airplane. Our analysis thus far has shown our reserve funds for general maintenance and engine overhaul to have little room for savings. While this is an unfortunate truth of aircraft ownership, we can at least put these funds to work for us.

Treat Your Cessna Like a B-1

Remember our recent discussion where we noted that, with both jets and investments, the faster you go, the faster you go? I want you to treat your aircraft like the Bone.