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 you’re 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 don’t actually agree for the most part with Dave Ramsey (even about the entirety of this post)…but he’s 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. That’s enough for a decent new small sedan, but if you have kids (especially if 3 or more), that’s 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. “A couple of years” can do the trick in some cases.
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 don’t actually agree for the most part with Dave Ramsey (even about the entirety of this post)…but he’s 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. That’s enough for a decent new small sedan, but if you have kids (especially if 3 or more), that’s 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. “A couple of years” can do the trick in some cases.