What is your car payment?

[Anonymous]

$200 a month

[Anonymous]

0, if I cant pay cash I buy a lower price car

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is about comfort, and convenience.

Better comfort, better sound, better ride, quieter ride better features (bluetooth, integrated iphone, voice navigation, active cruise control, heated seats, cooled seats, rear seat DVD) - this just off the top of my head.

Not everything needs to be about accepting the bare minimum. If you have the means, and want to spend it on a car - do it. Why is this such a big deal?

You can get all those features in a non luxury brand sedan.

OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we bought at $60K car (excluding taxes, etc) and put down around $10K. got a 5 year loan at a very low rate for the rest and pay around $1000/month.

Insane waste of money.

I wouldn't say so - if you spend a ton of time in your car and have the means, I actually don't think $60K gets you an extravagant car. You get a decent 5 series or an E class Mercedes, certainly not over the top.

You're out of touch with reality. You can get a decent car for $30-$40k less. A fool and his money are easily parted. If you're rich enough to pay cash, whatever. If you're financing $50k, you're a fool IMO.

yep. fool.

i'm the OP in this portion of the thread. you all are assuming a lot. we could have paid cash if we wanted to but why do so when financing is available at incredibly low rates?

[Anonymous]

We paid cash for a brand new Mazda CX7 (about $21k three years ago).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pretty much everyone I know IRL has a lease or loan payment. Most with the expensive luxury cars (larger sedans and SUV's) are on a lease. They couldn't afford it otherwise.

We pay cash for new mid level Hondas. I think my Odyssey EXL was about $33k.

Only idiots lease.

[Anonymous]

I don't drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we bought at $60K car (excluding taxes, etc) and put down around $10K. got a 5 year loan at a very low rate for the rest and pay around $1000/month.

Insane waste of money.

I wouldn't say so - if you spend a ton of time in your car and have the means, I actually don't think $60K gets you an extravagant car. You get a decent 5 series or an E class Mercedes, certainly not over the top.

You're out of touch with reality. You can get a decent car for $30-$40k less. A fool and his money are easily parted. If you're rich enough to pay cash, whatever. If you're financing $50k, you're a fool IMO.

yep. fool.

i'm the OP in this portion of the thread. you all are assuming a lot. we could have paid cash if we wanted to but why do so when financing is available at incredibly low rates?

I agree with OP the smart choice would be to finance at 0% to 2% APR 100% of the car and shove that money into the market (401K, etc...) and earn 6-8%... lately the market has returned substantially more than that.... Most people are debt adverse so if paying cash makes you sleep better at night... then pay cash. But paying all cash in this low interest rate environment is not the most financially sound decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get it, why pay cash? Our money has been giving us 12% returns in the stock market. I'm sure this whole thing is going to collapse soon, but whenever a stock has done well, we have cashed out, stashed away the profits and reinvested our initial investment.

One stock in particular that I was watching closely, I sold when it doubled, that took about 8 months. Quickly turns a car I would have spend 35K cash on into 35K of profits.

Because your 12% is high-risk investing. If you can consistently get 12% returns, you should quit your job, and start being a fund manager -- that outperforms the majority of fund managers on Wall Street.

Your point is well-taken though -- if you have the cash, and can get a 0% loan, it's better to take the loan. That's what we did on our last car purchase. 0% financed by GM (Ally Bank) and we put the money in an FDIC-insured account at 0.85% interest. Yes it's not a big payoff, but it's also risk-free.

My only critique is that at 0.85% interest you're not keeping up with inflation so you're actually losing money in real terms. Paying off the car is the better choice in this case. But inflation has been real low, in economic terms, but in practical, local terms if you take the any of the toll roads on a regular basis, or need to rent an apartment (or even buy) prices have gone up considerably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$0 - we bought in cash.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you pay cash for a brand new car, don't you already lose the depreciation as soon as you drive it off the lot?

The depreciation happens regardless of the financing.

This. And it's worse if you finance, because, depending on how much you put down and the amount of the depreciation, you may now owe more than the car is worth.

It's not that bad because whether you finance or pay cash being upside down only matters if you total the car, or want to sell the car. If you total car most insurance companies now have gap coverage (or some similar feature); if you sell it, presumably you still have the cash in the bank (that's the point of this discussion) so you just write a check to cover the difference. But about 99% of people in America don't have enough cash on hand to pay for their DESIRED car cash... (lots of people can buy $1,000 beater).

[Anonymous]

$357/mo for my Camry, bought a 1-year old ex-fleet with $1k down.

I always drove beaters before, so this feels like a luxury car to me! I don't care much what I drive , but I wanted something with newer safety features and high reliability.

[Anonymous]

Zero. Paid cash for a used 2007 Toyota in 2011. Keeping it until it dies.

[Anonymous]

$534/mo for a new Subaru Outback.

$0 down

[Anonymous]

We pay cadh. No car payments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty much everyone I know IRL has a lease or loan payment. Most with the expensive luxury cars (larger sedans and SUV's) are on a lease. They couldn't afford it otherwise.

We pay cash for new mid level Hondas. I think my Odyssey EXL was about $33k.

Only idiots lease.

If your someone who likes to drive a new car every year or two than only idiots don't lease.