Geez. That’s crazy. My car was bought outright 15 years ago. I can’t imagine paying monthly on a car, to me a car is like a TV, you buy what you can afford. That meant I had a lot of junkers over the years, but I’ve never had a car payment and I’m very glad for that. I feel for the people these days, because even the junker cars are expensive enough that if I had to have a car now because mine died, I’d probably have to finance.
As long as it’s not taking more than you can afford financing can have many benefits. You can get a much better vehicle than you might be able to buy cash, and you don’t have to use money that could otherwise be used to invest or get other things all at once. The cost of a car loan and a reasonable rate isn’t all that high, and if you really wanted to you can pay it off sooner.
What would the interest paid be on a loan brought to term though? It has to be thousands of dollars. I’m a cheap bastard, that’s just too much of a risk for me. As long as I have a car, I just tuck money away for when I need my next one, which hasn’t happened in 15 years once I finally got a decent one. I’m hoping I can make this thing last another 10 or 15 too, it already gets better gas mileage than almost any combustion engine vehicle, and is up there with some of the lower hybrid vehicles, so there’s really nothing in a newer car that would be better for me.
Geez. That’s crazy. My car was bought outright 15 years ago. I can’t imagine paying monthly on a car, to me a car is like a TV, you buy what you can afford. That meant I had a lot of junkers over the years, but I’ve never had a car payment and I’m very glad for that. I feel for the people these days, because even the junker cars are expensive enough that if I had to have a car now because mine died, I’d probably have to finance.
As long as it’s not taking more than you can afford financing can have many benefits. You can get a much better vehicle than you might be able to buy cash, and you don’t have to use money that could otherwise be used to invest or get other things all at once. The cost of a car loan and a reasonable rate isn’t all that high, and if you really wanted to you can pay it off sooner.
What would the interest paid be on a loan brought to term though? It has to be thousands of dollars. I’m a cheap bastard, that’s just too much of a risk for me. As long as I have a car, I just tuck money away for when I need my next one, which hasn’t happened in 15 years once I finally got a decent one. I’m hoping I can make this thing last another 10 or 15 too, it already gets better gas mileage than almost any combustion engine vehicle, and is up there with some of the lower hybrid vehicles, so there’s really nothing in a newer car that would be better for me.
There’s calculators to find that out. At 3% for 4 years on $40,000 it would be about $2,500.