etc.
Posted on 10/12/2008 8:59:55 PM PDT by bornred
An inflatable gorilla beckoned from the roof of Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis, servers doled out free bowls of pasta and a salesman urged potential customers to "come on up under the canopy and put your hands on" a new set of wheels.
But sitting across from a salesman in a quiet back room, Adrian Clark could see it would not be nearly that easy. This was the ninth or tenth dealership for Clark, a steamfitter looking for a car to commute to a new job. Every one offered a variation on the discouragement he was getting here: Without $1,000 for a downpayment, no loan.
...
"I think we're undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue," said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com.
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
“An inflatable gorilla beckoned from the roof of Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis”
Racist!
What a novel concept!
I pray so. The long term viability of our country depends on it.
$1k downpayment on a car? That’s peanuts. We put about $4k down on my 2001 CRV which we bought new.
I know things are starting to get bad. I look at the local bulletin boards at the stores here and a heck of a lot of people are selling their “TOYS” boats, four wheelers, R.V.s etc.
Yo Adrian, if you can't scare up $1000, how you gonna make the payments, jack@ss?? I had no idea we'd reached a point where this was considered normal. Same with houses. Silly me, living by Poor Richard's rules.
If you can’t afford to put $1k down on a car, you should be shopping for $200 junkers on Craigslist, not going to a dealer and expecting credit.
Did someone post a picture of Mich. O.?
In the consumer market, I think the appetite for risk at banks will be considerably less than in the past 10 to 15 years.
One thing that will come out of this period of American lending is just how little economists and “financial engineers” (what an oxymoron of a term) know about risk. Another thing that will be studied is the behavior of bankers around false risk prediction metrics. The financial risk models have utterly failed, and the whole premise of “Value at Risk” is now discredited. It will take a couple of years for it to finally be buried, but there’s no doubting the losses here. Entire international banking empires, built over more than a century, ceased to exist in a week’s time because of the mathematical mental masturbation of “financial engineers” and their absurd ideas of how to quantify and model risk.
In DC... well, that’s a whole ‘nuther story.
Just bought a 2005 Chrysler 300C with $1,000 down, and a 6.5% interest rate for 60 months. There are loans being made out there folks.
“”I think we’re undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue,” said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com.”
Three generations too late.
Past time to stop easy credit forever.
“Just bought a 2005 Chrysler 300C with $1,000 down, and a 6.5% interest rate for 60 months. “
There shouldn’t even be financing on cars.
Save your money and pay cash.
Of the more than a dozen cars that I’ve owned I paid cash for every one of them.
I borrowed for my first car, but I have paid cash for the next three (and plan to pay cash when I replace my wife’s car after it gives up the ghost).
To get a good downpayment (and we are talking about $3,000) I walked to work for five months (from Feb. to Aug.) in the Quad Cities, IL/IA. I felt I was taken advantage some by GMAC in the loan process (they included the extended maintenance in the contract along with life insurance and did not tell me). I caught it during the review process on the paperwork and threatened to walk out (now days I would have walked out without blinking). They pulled it out, and I took the loan. I still got burned by the prepayment penalty (Rule of 78) when I paid ahead on my car to finish the loan.
I did not have a car during college, and I survived by using my feet and buses. I had absolutely nothing when I came out of college.
And if you can’t get to a job because you don’t have a car, where are you going to come up with $200?
Very few people could afford to go to college, to buy a house, to buy a decent car, etc. if they had to wait until they had all the money to purchase it outright.
Similarly, businesses would not expand and create new jobs if they depended entirely on receipts.
Obtaining credit is an act of faith and hope in the future: you believe that you will have the financial wherewithal to afford your current purchases even if it means paying for them over time with interest.
Some of the things you purchase will be entirely practical such as purchasing a decent truck for your business. Other things will be a mixed bag such as a vacation to a location which might provide some future business opportunities. And some will be purely for the sheer enjoyment of life such as a jet ski.
We need to be prudent, but we also need to realize that this is the one material life we will have and we weren't put here merely to struggle through and barely get by until we drop dead of worry and regret.
A cursory reading would provide the answer:
1) Get car with dealer financing.
2) Use car to commute to new job.
3) Receive wages for work from employer.
4) Use wages to make loan payments.
I don’t have a car and I am totally dependent on transit to find and maintain employment, and it totally sucks. I’m tired of finding listings for great jobs and not being able to get to them.
For those of us at the bottom of the economy, $1K is a lot of money and represents a lot of toil.
Take the damn bus! Are you actually trying to tell me that people are somehow ENTITLED to a car? And I’m supposed to cry because they ‘can’t get a job’ because they don’t have a car?
Listen, I’ve actually been in these situations. I’ve actually had nothing, been poor, been totally screwed. I’ve lived with no car, no job, even no place to live at one point.
You pull yourself up out of it. You don’t expect others to just give you anything and you damn sure don’t think you’re entitled to anything that you can’t afford!
And then when his $200 junker breaks down and he can’t get to work and he loses his job, he got what he paid for and it’s all his fault. Got it.
Lots of things ‘totally suck’. So why the hell should anyone just give you a loan without a down payment? Why the hell should you even have a car if you can’t afford to pay for it?
Perhaps you would be more at home at another, less conservative, website? There, people might not be as keen on relying on themselves to fix their own problems.
Oh, I get it. You’re a troll.
Well, I tell ya what. On your way back to DU, why don’t you just give all of your income to the government, so they can buy this jackass the car that he’s ‘entitled’ to. Then you can feel oh so good about yourself.
Let’s see if I’ve got this right:
No cash -> no car - no loan for you!
No car -> no job -> no income -> no money to buy car to get job.
Looks like a bad loop here.
Back to DU with you, you slimy troll.
There are a lot of people with unrealistic expectations. When I bought a car in 2002, the idiots at the next salesman’s desk were trying to buy a truck they could not afford.
They wanted to buy a $30k truck without any money down. They finally walked out when the sales manager told them that he could not sell them a Tundra, but that they could buy a Tacoma.
It’s kind of ironic that the dealership was doing the right thing even though they looked like the bad guys to the people who couldn’t buy the truck they wanted.
Save your money and pay cash.
(scratching head) If he just got a job, and was previously unemployed, what money was he supposed to save?
I started plastwreing for my father when I was 14.
Bought a 40 Ford coupe and spent 2 years building it so I would have a richous street racer when I turned 16.
The wirst thing was that my parents wouldn’t let me be on their insurance policy and I had to buy my own and they demanded a minimum of $100k liability.
The insurance cost me $625/year and that was in 1952, almost as much as I had in the car.
When we got married in 1958 I had to promise to quit racing so I sold the 40 for $600 to buy her rings!
If someone is that pathetic, then then should just go ahead and apply for asylum to North Korea. Then Dear Leader will help them to find productive employment.
Oh, my...a ‘lot of toil’.
Did you ever stop to think that MANY of us who are no longer in such a situation have lived through just that???!!?
Sorry, bud. Zero sympathy for you. Take your lumps. Earn your money. THEN enjoy the spoils of success. Until then, work your ass off like the rest of us did.
We need to be prudent, but we also need to realize that this is the one material life we will have and we weren’t put here merely to struggle through and barely get by until we drop dead of worry and regret.
Millions of people do this - I do - what else were they put here for?
And if his mommy beat him up and his boyfriend robbed him to support his crystal meth habit, that would suck too...
Dang...life is tough sometimes.
That may be your plan, but there are a lot of people in this country who are prone to skipping steps 2-4. The lender needs to take reasonable measures to ensure that the buyer will make good on his obligation.
As we have seen, writing a big fat loan check with no money down and minimal documentation didn’t work out so good. I do hope those days are gone since this practice drove prices sky-high for cash customers.
I’m not a rich person, I saved for a long time for that money (about 4 yrs).
I started walking a paper rout when I was 8.
I also opened abank account and started saving my money.
Within a few months I bought a bicycle to do the route with.
I’ve never in my life let my savings get below 6 monrhs earnings, that’s what I was taught and have lived by it for 71 yars.
“$1K is a lot of money and represents a lot of toil.”
BS, When I was making $3.25/hr when we got married we saved $7,000 in 8 years to have the necessary 29% down to buy a home.
We both had cars, paid for in cash and my wife didn’t work.
No, I’m not saying people are entitled to a car. But Lars Larson has on many occasions noted that access to a car provides a greater boost in earnings than a high school diploma. There is some private-sector program which helps finance beaters for people who want to go to work, (that’s a loan, not a handout) and we should be supporting this sort of activity, not scorning it as an entitlement issue.
And taking the damn bus isn’t always feasible. There were some swing shift janitor jobs at a top tech firm I wanted to apply for but the place is 90 minutes by bus and the shift ends too late to get home by bus. Just a few minutes ago I found a job on Craigslist and there’s no bus that runs anywhere near there. (You can actually plan a bus trip online, unless there are no buses that go there.)
So if someone lives in BFE and they don’t have a car and they can’t get to a job, how do they pull themselves out of it?
Here's the deal. You've got 3 numbers to play with when buying a car--the price of the car, the interest rate on the loan, and the down payment. That's it. You and the dealer have to make those 3 numbers come out to something you can handle. And I'm saying there ain't a number you can handle if you can't even manage to scare up $1000 bucks.
For someone in your situation, being young and all, I recommend hitting up your parents. If they can't help you get started with a loan, maybe they can let you live rent free for a while. Work out a deal to "rent" their car if possible. If not, walk to work if you have to. Been there, done that. Take any job at all. Even at minimum wage you could clear a couple hundred a week. If you can eat your parents food and sleep in your old bedroom, you can have $1000 in about a month.
It's not that tough. Most people just have no sense or aren't willing to swallow their pride, do what they need to do. Once you get the car, and the phat job, do the right thing and pay your parents back in installments for letting you stay there. Even if they refuse, do it. It'll completely buy back your sense of pride and self-sufficiency.
If your parents aren't an option, there are plenty other ways. Find a cheap ass room to live in. Even a grungy boarding house. Better would be just a very small room in an apt house somewhere. Get one in a town with lots of jobs. Get one, or better still, two of those jobs. Save up 1000 dollars buy living cheap, having no fun for a while. Instead of going out and chasing girls, stay at home and read classic books that inspire and educate, so you will become a stronger, more capable person.
Anyway, I won't be surprised if you come back with all sorts of reason why nothing will work. If that's the case, just accept that you're a big LOSER, and go get a tattoo of a big red L on your forehead. Pay for it with a credit card.
So am I to believe that along with medical care owning a car is now a right??? Wow, where have I been all these years?
Get an old car and fix it up. They may take more gas, but they are way cheaper in the long run if you can fix them yourself.
I just got a line on a 69 El Camino that I will pick up for $2500. It smokes a bit, is pretty clean, not much rust.
I will go through the brakes and shocks, rebuild the motor adding flattop pistons, 202 heads, and after-market 4bbl manifold, carb and headers, 2 1/2" dual exhaust, new fat rubber and nice wheels (2nd hand from junk yard), Up grade the radio, add some gauges... upholstery, and paint after while..
I know I won't hit $7000, I doubt I will hit $6000 in the whole project, just do a bit at a time and wait for the parts to show up on the street or on sale...
I will wind up with a tough little rig that will beat the pants off of most stock cars, fly through traffic, be a blast to drive, chocked full of old skool cool, get 22 to 25 mpg hwy, yet be simple enough to fix myself. You can buy a lot of gas for what a $95 an hour mechanic costs.
LOL. I think you've got the right idea.
etc.
How do you do it? You walk to work. Jobs are too far away? Move into a town with jobs. Grab a bunch of friends and rent an apt together. Hell, I lived in a tent for a while. Some of the best times of my life, too.
Maybe find a girl with a car and convince her you're not a loser long enough to make use of her car to get to work. Hell, I had a job picking fruit where they gave you a bed and you could sleep right there.
How far we've fallen. You sound so pathetic and lame. When the settlers travelled west in the wagon trains, you know what they did when they ran out of food? They ate the family dog and used the fat to grease their wagon wheels.
Grow a pair.
Evidently you were put here to whine and bitch like a spoiled child with no sense at all. You're doing a bang up job of it.
I’m comfortable with libertarian and conservative websites - but I can’t even take websites like DU(H) in small doses. The private sector does great things when it is unfettered and moral individuals step up to the plate.
Nobody should give anybody anything, and the nothing-down financing of the past to just about anybody for anything was wrong and totally ridiculous. The $1,000 down bit is just a way for a dealer to eliminate risk while retaining a huge upside. You sell a $500-$1,000 junker for $1,000 down and if you never see another dime you at least break even and if the payments are all made on time you hit the jackpot.
You can oppose usury and still support capitalism - Dave Ramsey does it on a regular basis, and nobody has ever questioned his conservative credentials. What I don’t understand is the attitude that someone who wants to be economically productive should have to remain unproductive because $1,000 of car financing (to be repaid through proceeds of employment) is viewed as a handout or evidence of an entitlement mentality.
I have missed out on thousands of dollars of earnings and more than a few jobs because I don’t have a car, so this is a sore point for me.
You will find that "things" have very little to do with why you were put here.
Old Skool says the ONLY thing you buy on credit is your house. The rest you do on your back. Period. And you live well within your means. By and large, as the current dilemma seems to be proving yet again, Old Skool Rulez Rules.
So you never buy that brandy new jetski. Go down to sears and buy the biggest box of Craftsman tools they have ($1500 bucks). Then the next time one of your buddies stacks up his jetski into a dock, you can buy it from him for $200 Take it home and stuff it in your garage and fix it. Viola! Brandy new Jetski, and no payment.
THAT is how a dirt poor redneck gets a yard full of toys.
I don’t go to DU and wouldn’t go there if someone paid me. (And considering how much I need money, that’s saying something.)
Never did I suggest more government or higher taxes. The private sector is helping people become more productive where moral individuals are getting involved. No government needed, just less judgmentalism.
I am coming at this from the perspective of a low income person with financial constraints to becoming more productive. And I thought becoming more productive was a good thing which should be encouraged in the private sector.
I’d just like to know how someone is supposed to be productive and all that if they can’t get to a job.
NONSENSE. My last business, a painting company, was started with a 1974 chevy blazer my partner and I pooled our money for ($400 bucks), a grip full of paint brushes, one 5 ft step ladder, and ONE contract. In two years it was making a quarter million a year, and employing 6 workers.
You are wrong. If there is no work, you must make your own.
“I think we’re undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue,” said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com.
This was the first comment that hit my sore spot. (More generally, I’ve read a number of things on Bankrate that have hit my sore spot.) I’m still trying to figure out how someone earning minimum wage is supposed to live within their means (this part I can do) AND save and invest for the future. (My solution is to let people privately invest the taxes extracted from their paychecks for Social Security and Medicare.) If I knew how to do all that I could write a book and make a fortune.
Would you like a job making at least 40 dollars an hour?
I love my 2000 CRV. :)
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