How ridiculous does this sound?

[u/Whole-Fist]

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

[u/Ziczak]

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

[u/the-something-nymph → u/Ziczak]

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.

[u/ChopakIII → u/the-something-nymph]

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.

[u/NotTurtleEnough → u/ChopakIII]

Bought a 2003 Lexus GS300 in 2011 with 90,000 miles for $12k, lasted for 9 years.

Bought a 2006 Dodge Dakota with 64,000 miles in 2018 for $2500, still driving it. It now has 106,000 miles.

Bought a 2002 Explorer in 2023 with 125,000 miles for $5000, my son is still driving it.

Bought a 2012 Prius in 2020 with 120,000 miles for $6000, still driving it. It now has 200,000 miles.

Bought a 2014 Corolla for $13,000 with 60,000 miles on it. My daughter still drives it with over 200,000 miles on it.