Posted on 02/26/2023 2:25:29 PM PST by RomanSoldier19
When the money was free...why would they have cared? Just like people that were again, buying houses they couldn’t afford.
Tried to get into a trailer in 2011.
Was not successful.
Excellent, I would like to upgrade my 2001 Frontier.
Back in the day, the automotive elements of cars were quite good. The problem was the paint job and cars literally started falling apart after 5 years or so. My 6 year old Jeep Cherokee looks just like it did when I drove it out of the showroom 50,000 miles ago. My major expense over fuel and insurance is covering the cost of new tires. I'll be keeping this car for another 5 years if my grandson doesn't wreck it first lol.
We live in an area with a lot of car dealerships; they couldn’t park all their used cars on their lots. This seemed to be a made up shortage.
That would be several of my neighbors. One can afford it, with a two-income household and he uses it for various yard projects and home improvements.
The others are useless vanity purchases that they can't afford. One told me he always wanted a truck and bought the monster. He can't fit it in his garage, has three other cars, and the truck is never used. Retired on a limited income.
Another neighbor went from a Toyota Prius to a decked-out raised F-150 - with handicapped plates. It won't fit in his garage, he can barely climb into it, has bad legs and never does any work in or out, rarely uses the truck. Again, a vanity purchase he can barely afford.
This is a scenario using round numbers to illustrate my point:
Buy a new $25,000 car with a $10,000 downpayment. Finance $15,000 for four years. That's about $315/mo.
After the four years, your car is paid off and will have maybe 60,000 miles (with normal driving).
NOW, take that same $315/mo you were paying on the car note and now deposit it into a savings account. Don't touch that money for anything else. After four more years, you will have an eight-year old car with roughly 120,000 miles on it.
But you will now have $15,000 saved up for a downpayment on a new car if you need one. Or you can keep your car longer until you have enough saved to buy a new car with cash.
LOL, that ain't happening now. Car rental prices are ridiculous. Try $600 to $800 a week as a bargain.
Average new car price in the U.S. in Jan 2023 was $49,200 according to the Kelly Blue book folks.
Wife had a $21,000 cash offer from CarMax on her CRV, so we were looking to get something at $40K assuming a good trade-in value on her car.
Theoretically she could have gotten a new Audi Q3 or BMW X1 if she didn’t go too heavy on the options.
Theoretically.
Because there were absolutely zero (none, nada) new X1s or Q3s on the local lots, in spite of what the dealer internet inventories indicated, and the prices were in the $46K-$48K range to order one because of ‘market adjustments’ and/or $6K-$8K worth of optional equipment.
So, good luck shopping. Be prepared sacrifice an arm, leg and a kidney to buy anything.
What are you needing to do?
Show me how to get the $10k Chinese Communist Coronavirus payement!
IIRC DW and I got $2400 each, and we Fer Shure! Fer Shure! Didn’t buy no steenken new cars!
High? I remember when you could get a loan for only 18 months for a used car and 24 months for a new one! And only from a bank!
Now you can get a loan from a car company for 7 years!
Beware of decal on bumper painted by R. Brush never who owns it.
Vito turns lights out.
The ordinary kind, by the looks of it, and a lot of them.
Number 1 way to cut your car payments to zero: save up until you can purchase a used car that will last a few years and save up a couple hundred bucks a month to have cash to repair it or purchase another one when the old one craps out.
NEVER BUY NEW and NEVER PURCHASE A WARRANTY. If you buy from used car lot, they aren’t “giving” you a warranty with the car, they are selling you a warranty and hiding it in the price. Insist they remove the warranty from the price and if the refuse, walk away.
Oh, and another couple things, insist that you be able to take the vehicle to an independent mechanic for evaluation, pay him a couple hundred dollars to do a thorough job, Insist on a Carfax. Go to kbb.com and know the value of the vehicle before you deal.
Own a 2003 Cadillac Deville. 75,000 miles. Bought it for $3,500. 5 years ago.
It's probably not Gen X-ers falling behind on their $1,000/mo car payments. I'd guess mostly Millennials buying $90,000 Ford F250 Super Duty pickup trucks.
Anyhow, I'm a Gen X-er. I drive a 2015 Tacoma 4x4 with 55k miles. It's paid off. My Millennial wife drives a 2014 Toyota Sienna minivan with 63k miles. It's paid off. We take our cars to the Toyota dealer religiously every 5k miles and get the scheduled maintenance performed as required, every time, by Toyota mechanics.
I like not having a car payment. I like having dependable Toyotas that I'll probably be able to put another 200k miles on.
I'm thinking about picking up a used Corolla just to keep the miles of my Tacoma. My oldest son will be driving in the next couple of years and it'll be something for him to learn on. I have a very good relationship with Toyota and see myself driving their vehicles until the end.
I remember a long time ago maybe 40 years ago. It was very common to see vehicles for sale in the classified ads that could be had by taking over the payments. I guess the sellers just wanted out with wrecking their credit.
I know someone who could get you a new BMW for $5k and he’ll likely be back at it when he gets out of prison!
I think when housing gets in trouble, that will start the big drop in all assets, including inflated stock market.
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