And sure we could get into buying a cheaper, used car or whatever, but in the long term the maintenance costs, having to buy another car sooner, and other financial risks to cars outside of warrantee over a lifetime will add up similarly unless youâre really lucky or can repair your own cars.
Buying a low-mileage used car and even paying for a shop to do the maintenance is almost always cheaper than buying something with $500+ monthly payments. I donât actually agree for the most part with Dave Ramsey (even about the entirety of this post)âŚbut heâs correct that it is cheaper.
Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. So any car for that amount is not going to survive long. So most Americans still get loans for used cars.
And with interest rates so high, a payment of $550 will only get you about $25K. Thatâs enough for a decent new small sedan, but if you have kids (especially if 3 or more), thatâs probably the minimum needed to get a used minivan that will last a while.
Anything else is only going to last a few years at best before needing major repairs.
I just did an autotrader search and in my (very unaffordable) area, there were lots of serviceable cars under 10k. If you live in a place with a garage you can even buy a used EV and eliminate whole categories of maintenance costs.
The whole point is to buy something that requires smaller or no monthly payments, and then bank the savings and eventually buy something better. âA couple of yearsâ can do the trick in some cases.
$10k for a serviceable minivan or other vehicle that would work as a primary car for parents? What about the problem that most households need two incomes and very few can commute together due to different schedules and locations and adding even an extra hour or two of daycare in order to share a car is often as much as a second car payment.
As I said, $25k is probably plenty for a small sedan for a single person who only uses it for commuting and grocery shopping, but not likely for people with multiple children that a small sedan or coupe would not work, households with multiple income earners, households with teenagers who also need a car to work, or all the other scenarios where a single, small, used sedan thatâs just good enough for a short daily commute is reasonable.
$550 in car payments for a houshold is not unreasonable for the vast majority of households and usually doesnât equate to frivolous spending.
