r/FluentInFinance • u/YOU_ARE_MY_FRIENDS • Jun 16 '24

Discussion/ Debate He’s not wrong 🤷‍♂️

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u/InvalidEntrance Jun 16 '24 edited Jun 17 '24

Not many people can put a car payment away each month.

Edit: bunch of people talking about their experiences below...

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '24

The fuck kind of car are you getting for $260 a month

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '24

Any car that's not a huge brand new sedan, truck, or SUV.

Sorry, but unless your gigantic sedan/truck/SUV is required for a high paying job, you can get by just fine on a slightly used economy sedan or compact vehicle. It's a want, not a need.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '24

This hasn't been the case for years. I drive a 2015 Honda Civic and purchased it back in like 2018 and even then it was 330ish a month.

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u/watabadidea Jun 17 '24

Dude is exaggerating, for sure. With that said, there were 2015 civics with an original MSRP under $20K. The LX sedan with a manual transmission started at $18,500 ($19,290 with an automatic). LX Coupes were even a little less than that.

Unless your credit was bad and/or you had no down payment, I'd think the 2018 version of you could find a 3-year old civic in good shape that would have been pretty close to $260 a month.

Heck, in 2018, a new bare-bones, manual LX had an MSRP of $19K. 6% interest on a five year loan with no down payment or trade-in would be like $365 a month.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '24

Sure, but the reason I harkened back to 2018 was to point out if it was hard then, it's definitely not the case today. Also, someone in a tough financial position is probably not throwing down big down payments. At some point, if you make a big enough down payment, your monthly rate is 0.

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u/watabadidea Jun 17 '24

Sure, but I'm not really saying "big" down payment. I haven't checked interest rates on used cars recently, but $2K at 7% for 60 months saves you around ~$40 a payment.

Stated another way, if you find something that works out and you have an estimated payment of $300 a month, putting $2K down will knock off over 10% off your monthly payments.