She lives in Texas. The good news is that in 2025, Texas wisely eliminates annual “safety” inspections. Those are designed to discriminate against people like her.
She is stuck now but needs to sell the car yesterday. Private sale to earn as much as possible. She’s going to be upside down for a long time.
Buy a dirt cheap jalopy. Even if it needs repairs it won’t cost $650 a month. Limit driving to necessary trips. Look for a better job than retail or try to get into management.
Eliminate all subscriptions. Listen to the radio for free instead of paying for streaming.
Change the phone to Pure Talk or Patriot Mobile. They are cheap and work great. I have Pure Talk.
Zero restaurant meals. Lots of black beans, peanut butter etc.
Cut the cable. Shop at goodwill and Aldi.
Get the income up and the expenses down.
Most of that advice was our lifestyle for years. We lived at or below our means.
Now, we don’t need to but it’s pretty much a lifestyle.
Great advice for young people.
But all of that would require intelligence and discipline. My guess is she has neither.
Based on the other characteristics of her life revealed in the piece, her credit score is very low. She pays a large risk premium to the lender because her risk of defaulting on the loan is high.
The only question is - how much cross-subsidization is there between responsible, realistic borrowers with low risk of default and certain groups who are precisely the opposite. The attitude of this article is to suggest that this is some type of random punishment that was imposed on this person, rather than the logical consequence of bad choice and bad behaviors.
I’m actually planning to do a couple of those things, along with seeking extra work. A $25/hour salary at 40 hours/week still is not enough, thank to Joe Biden and his Uniparty minions.
“We lived at or below our means.”
Bingo. I did that from age 21 to age 64 and was able to retire with no financial concerns. I now buy two year old fleet cars from Hertz. I haven’t bought a new car or motorcycle since I was 20 and in the Navy. I shouldn’t have done it then either. The 65 Fairlane I had was way more practical than the new ‘72 Toyota Land Cruiser.