Posted on 03/23/2024 6:49:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
With a $650 payment for 72 months, this is going to be one expensive Toyota Camry
Your twenties are the perfect time to screw up and try to get your xxxx figured out. Sometimes it takes getting to the rock bottom before you can dig yourself out of it. For the sake of everyone involved here, I hope this young woman on Caleb Hammer’s Financial Audit show has reached her bottom and will find a way to get her life turned around. Right now, it seems like the best first step would be to sell her car and find her way into something less expensive. At 23-years-old, there’s no reason to owe $31,000 on a Toyota Camry. Especially when you can’t afford it.
This young woman’s financial situation is a real mess, and she’s going through some rough stuff with a pending divorce from an abusive military man. Her short-lived marriage stuck her living with her parents, driving a car she can’t afford, and working part time. Unfortunately, this downward spiral came with a bunch of self-destructive coping mechanisms, including hundreds of dollars of in-app purchases, lots of fast food, vaping, and over-drafting her bank account.
It seems like she’ll be headed back to college, so she will definitely need some good solid reliable wheels. Living in Texas means public transit isn’t really an option, but spending 30 percent of your income on a car payment isn’t really an option either. This 2021 Camry came with a 72-month note at nearly 12 percent interest.
At the end of the day (er, month?) the payment runs her $646.33, despite only working 33 hours a week at $15 an hour. She has to work more than 43 hours at her retail job just to afford the car payment. No wonder she’s drawing too much on her accounts and racking up credit card debt!
To make matters worse, it doesn’t seem like she and her former paramour spent much money on the car’s down payment, as she still owes $30,656 (the equivalent of 2,044 hours at her current job) on the note.
Saving up for a couple of months, or borrowing from her parents, and buying a cheap-but-reliable beater would give her a lot of opportunities that this Camry just isn’t delivering. I hope she gets it turned around. This was a rough one to watch.
“”When I was 23, I drove a rattletrap and damn glad to have it.””
Me too! And back in those days, I could tune it up myself. Timing, dwell, points, gapper, etc. I just loved it!
There are cheaper cars.
The only car I ever paid cash for was my brand new 2005 Nissan Altima. I was already retired, and didn't want to have a car payment, so I paid cash. It was $28,000 back then. I kept that car almost 15 years. It had a little over 100,000 miles on it, and had the original muffler system still. Other than regular maintenance and tires, the most I had to spend on it was $1000 to have a new A/C pump installed. The pump died after about 10 years.
That wasn't my first Nissan. I'd had others, and found them to be very reliable cars. That's why when I decided to lease, I stayed with Nissan. At the time I got rid of it in 2020, I was driving to Indiana to visit my son, and I didn't want to take the chance of the car breaking down while I was on road out of state. It had never broke down, and left me stranded in those 15 years, but at that point in my life, I didn't want to take chances, so initially, I rented cars from Enterprise for those trips, but eventually figured out that it was more cost effective for me to actually lease from a car dealer. And I haven't been disappointed. I have the maintenance plan on my lease cars, and other than having to pay $10 for yearly State Inspection, I haven't paid a penny for service visits in the past 4 1/2 years. For me, it's peace of mind.
I don't have the money now to pay cash for another car, and with a lease, when I die, the lease ends, and my kids won't have any trouble getting it back to the dealer. I own nothing, no home, no investments, no savings, zip. They won't even have to pay a lawyer to probate a Will, because there is nothing to probate. I have life insurance that will be split between the two of them, and they are both co-owners on my checking account, and can access it, and close it out when the time arrives. One of them can file for Letters of Administration with the county surrogate court after I die, so they can file my last Federal tax return, and get the refund from that. I pay no State Taxes on my State pension, as I paid the taxes when I earned the money, so the only thing I have to file with the State is a form telling them I owe them nothing, and they owe me nothing. If my two sons want to fight about any of it, which I doubt they would, I won't be around to worry about it anyway.
I don't know about you, but at my age, I find leasing gives me piece of mind. I have the maintenance plan on the lease, so the only thing I end up paying for, is $10 a year for NY State's required inspection.
I drove a 500 dollar beater in college (about 1500 dollars in today’s money) paid cash for it and when I wrecked it, I bought another beater with cash. I paid for my college tuition and room and board by roughnecking on the drilling rigs in South Louisiana, that was hot dangerous hard work. I learned as much from my driller Francis LeBlanc as my professors though his education was limited. He was a hard man but kind. He often employed kids going to college so they had the money for school. Of the crew on my rig two became pharmacists and another a lawyer. Francis would have fired us in an instant if we did not work hard. Francis wanted us to have the opportunities he did not.
My sympathy factor for this lady is zero.
Two professional degrees later, 50 years later, retired and financially secure, I buy what I want but never extravagant and owe no one anything. I was raised by my grandparents who were products of the great depression. They taught me well as did Francis LeBlanc.
The first car I bought (post divorce) cost $4000..Toyota liftback...a Peach of a car I drove for 10 years. I was working fulltime, in my 20s with a young son. But, I did not overspend elsewhere. I needed that car in order to get to work!
My family stopped buying new vehicles in 2005; choosing, instead, gently used for a fraction of the cost.
Even when I did buy my first new car, it was a Toyota Tercel with manual windows and no AC for $8K. Payments were $75 per month after my down-payment and I was bringing home $3,200 after taxes. It fit easily in my budget.
It’s all about the show. This girl is poor pretending to be rich. With this mindset, she will always be poor.
I knew I was struggling and wanted to be rich. I acted accordingly and didn’t waste my money on status symbols. My parents were wise teachers.
I purchased my first car when I was 31. True story.
I paid $10,300 for a Honda Cicic DX hatchback, drove it for 172,000 miles and sold it for $1,900.
I am 64 years old and on my 4th car (actually it’s a truck) with 159,000 miles.
Think of how much money I have saved over the decades.
“hundreds of dollars of in-app purchases, “
More gen-z newspeak?
Ha, ha, I agree with you. It sounds like she ran up the credit card and did not understand why it was so wrong. A spouse can destroy a military person's career by mishandling money.
I cannot tell you how many times I had to tell my subordinates that they were responsible for their spouses debts. And bad debts would prevent would prevent them from going to career enhancing tours.
I had my Battalion chaplain come to me to complain that one of my personnel were withholding money from their spouse. I called my Marine in and then called the chaplain. My Marine laid out how he set up a budget (showed us the budget), and asked what he was doing wrong. Both the chaplain and I said, "Nothing. Carry-on." Needless to say, they were divorced soon after. The wife had no concept of how money worked and did not want to know.
Ford:
Found
On
Road
Dead
I’m with you. I bought my first new car when I was 43 and it was an econobox.
Fix
Or
Repair
Daily
Sadly you usually gain that experience through bad decisions. Either yours or, if you are smart, someone elses.
But this kind of thing is why I am in favor of getting a job and having to pay for things while you are in your teens. It is almost the only way you will learn to handle money when being stupid will not end up with you sleeping under a bridge.
Given that blatant falsehood, I wonder what else in the story is a lie.
Setting aside what is doable with on-campus housing, let's run through a few public universities with public transit available.
UNT and TWU in Denton. (DCTA)
UTD in Richardson (DART)
UNT Dallas (DART)
UT Austin
TAMU (Campus)
UofH (Houston lags the Dallas area for transit, but there is a bus network).
There are more, but I'm not going to dig them out tonight.
Great advice for young people.
Were you born in 1950?
Speaking from experience. I have a ford ranger, 2000.
Oil leaks
Water pump
Dead cylinder.
Just for starters.
Every time I start to get serious about getting rid of it the price of new pickups (and even used pickups) sends me home.
Uber or Lyft might be risky for a young lady, but she could certainly find some way to get paid to drive her car. Perhaps Instacart, or driving some elderly person around.
Its either cut expenses or increase income, those are the choices.
You have done very well. I’m sure your sons are very proud of you. I also think I’ll eventually will lease. I wish you the best!!!! You are so put together.
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