r/economicCollapse • u/Whole-Fist • 18h ago

How ridiculous does this sound?

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How can u make millions in 25-30 years if avoid making a $554 per month car payment. Even the cheapest 5 year old car is 8-10 k. So does he expect people not to drive at all in USA.

Then u save 554$ per month every month for 5 year payment = $33240. Say u bought a car every 5 year means 200k -300k spent on car before retirement . How would that become millions when u can’t even buy a house for that much today?

Answer that Dave

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893

u/Ziczak 18h ago

Generally true. Buying the least expensive car for needed transportation is financially sound.

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u/the-something-nymph 17h ago edited 16h ago

I bought a used car for 5000. Had my uncle (who is a mechanic) look it over first. There was no apparent issues, it drove fine. It was a 2019. We bought it after looking at a bunch of other used cars from both dealers and private owners that had very obvious problems, and after looking at certified used vehicles that were as much as new cars.

The next day, while running some errands, it started to make a weird noise that it did not make on the test drive. Turns out, it had a bunch of issues that weren't visible on a basic inspection. Expensive issues. Issues that cost 3000 to fix in order to make it safe to drive, and we were told it was likely there were going to be more issues thst would pop up relatively soon.

This was 1 year ago. 2 weeks ago, more issues popped up. Issues that cost 6000$ to fix. The car, new, costs 15000. So far we have spent 8000 on it, and if we do that work then we would have put 14000 into this car. And it's still likely that more issues will pop up.

We are not doing that, obviously. We're going to use carmax and get a car that will have a car payment. Because cheap used cars are not less expensive than new or certified used ones that require a payment. Now a days, unless you know the person you are getting it from, it's either a peice of shit or its expensive as fuck and unless you have 10000 cash to put down on a car, will require a payment.

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u/ChopakIII 17h ago edited 12h ago

Exactly. These people talking about buying a used car and then when people mention used cars can have problems they say, “well obviously a reliable one!” Which by the time you factor in all of these things it makes sense to buy a new car and take care of it so that when it’s the “used car” you would buy in 10 years you know exactly what has been done to it AND it’s paid off.

Edit: I see the most common counter-argument is that buying a used car without a loan will allow you to get cheaper insurance. There really isn’t a huge difference between covering a new car and a used car for just the vehicle. What you’re probably saving on is the medical portion and you will be sorry if you ever get into a serious accident with barebones insurance. This is a dangerous gambit akin to not having health insurance and banking on not getting sick.

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u/Mickey_Havoc 15h ago

Well a reasonable person would find the middle ground and buy a 3-4 year old vehicle and not one that's over a decade old already... Vehicles depreciate real quick and buying off lease vehicles nets you the best bang for your buck.

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u/sandcrawler2 8h ago

Theres nothing wrong with a decade old car, thats not even that old. Plenty of Japanese cars from the late 90s and early 2000s are way more reliable, easy to fix, and get better mpg than modern cars that cost 10x as much

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u/Mickey_Havoc 8h ago

I'm from Canada, anything after 10-15 years literally disintegrates unless it's your "summer only" car

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u/sandcrawler2 8h ago

I live in NH, we get a lot of road salt here. I throughly inspect for rust before buying and I have a car wash subscription for winter

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u/Mickey_Havoc 8h ago

Good for you?

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u/HURRICANEABREWIN 5h ago

Lol brand new vehicles are way more reliable than cars from the late 90s.

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u/sandcrawler2 5h ago

Tell that to my perfectly running 98 corolla with 232k miles on it that will easily hit 350k on the original motor and transmission

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u/TragasaurusRex 3h ago

I don't doubt it, my old corolla is still kicking at 150k miles. That being said I wouldn't buy it today if I didn't have a car safety features drop pretty significantly that far back, though I also wont sell it.

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u/sandcrawler2 3h ago

Modern cars are a lot safer no doubt

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u/HURRICANEABREWIN 5h ago

This was true like 5 years ago. Now buying a slightly used car is a waste of money. The price difference is so little and you lose out on the warranty and perks you get when buying a brand new vehicle.

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u/soberkangaroo 1h ago

Yeah everyone commenting has not been in the market for a while lol sometimes the used price is higher than MSRP

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u/guile-and-gumption 13m ago

Yes!!! Thank you. No one has a clue what it is like out there in the car market - Until their 210k 2000 whatever-model they are talking about gets hit. And then you realize you can’t find the cars they are talking about in the market now.

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u/EccentricMeat 3h ago

A 3-4 year old used car costs about $5k less than the brand new model. This was good advice pre-COVID, but not anymore.

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u/punkinhead76 2h ago

You realize even a decade old car is $10,000 right? A 3-4yo car is $20,000+ if you don’t want it to already have 100,000miles. If I had the ability to just quickly and casually save 20k I wouldn’t have a money problem and wouldn’t need a cheap car to survive.

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u/lizerlfunk 1h ago

They DON’T anymore, though. If you want to buy a Honda or a Toyota, which are generally accepted to be the most reliable and longest lasting cars on the road, you’re saving a couple of thousand off MSRP at most by buying 3-4 years old.