Comments on: The Main Thing About Car Payments: They Suck

By: Chris Peach

Chris Peach — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 00:54:36 +0000

In reply to Shara. Hi Shara, I think you'll find the answers you need here on the blog and in my Awesome Money Course at AwesomeMoneyCourse.com. Let me know if you have other questions!

By: Shara

Shara — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 18:01:29 +0000

Hi Chris,
I know I am late to the discussion but what a great find! This is what my husband and I were just talking about this weekend. We need help! Guidence! A plan and fast! My husband put all our stuff on spreadsheets last week! We have two car payments totaling $850 a month and our credit card debit is $18k+ with $400 of the payment a month going to the interest only. We have student loan debit. But it’s the cars and credit cards that are killing us right now. We have no liquid cash left to really save because of these two. We bought our first house last year and our mortgage is lower then our rent was. Help!

By: Peach

Peach — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 13:35:33 +0000

In reply to Christina. Hi Christina, This is such a popular question on the blog which means you are not at all alone. I have a post that explains exactly what your options are and what you can do. Here is the link: Help! My Car is Upside Down. This will help guide you in the right direction :)

By: Christina

Christina — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 07:37:59 +0000

My hubby and I are in a dark financial hole right now and the car payment is a huge part of that problem! We still owe nearly $12K! With everything else it will be a long while before we can tackle paying it off and I am clueless on how to go about selling it when you have a bank loan. Do you just try to sell for nearly the payoff amount or as much as you can and pay it towards the loan? What about buying something to replace it?

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 21:23:51 +0000

Love this article. After I finished graduate school I was making great income and decided to “treat” myself by purchasing a brand new car with a nice hefty 675$ payment. Sooner or later along with other bills I got frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t grow my savings quickly and that I was basically living paycheck to paycheck even with a nice income. I got serious about budgeting and created a huge shovel to dump the car. I was so upside down with it being new I had to pay the heck out of it to get it to the even point so I could sell it. In addition to the payment I was paying an extra 2000$ a month on it. After paying it down about 14 to 15K dollars I finally sold it and even made a few bucks back on the sale. I went out a bought a fairly cheap 7K dollar little pick up truck cash and now I have no payment! Is a newer car or fancier car/truck nicer? Of course it is but driving a cheaper car doesn’t have to be forever. I plan to put away a certain amount now in a car fund so maybe next time I can buy a 10-12K car with cash and just keep building up that way. I’d say the best way to fend off the expensive car buying emotions is to refrain from comparisons to other people and just stay focused on one’s own goals and purpose.

By: Buddy

Buddy — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 17:27:43 +0000

In reply to Jacob Wade. No, new cars are nice. They are fun. Yes they do cost money. But life is short. Spend a bit and enjoy. Just stay within your budget.

By: Peach

Peach — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 20:30:28 +0000

In reply to Linds. Linds, You are the definition of the "Millionaire Next Door". Great job and thanks for sharing. Can you imagine how much less your net worth would be if you spent 45 years making car payments to the bank? Great job :)

By: Linds

Linds — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 06:32:11 +0000

When I got out of college I bought a used car with payments. When the car was paid for I kept making those payments to a car savings account. When I needed a new car I had the money. I have done that for over 45 years. I kept my cars for 15+ years so Ihave always had money to pay cash for a new car when I needed one.

By: Peach

Peach — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 00:37:58 +0000

In reply to James A. Beggs.

Hi James,

Well, it looks like you got a lemon on your hands since you’re doing repairs on it once a month. This sounds like you got a bad deal from the “buddy” at the used car lot.

The bottom line is you need to get out from this money pit, and it’s not going to the easiest thing you’ve done, but you can do it – many people have and do this everyday.

Read this post to get an idea of where to start.

Get Out From Up Side Down Car

You can do this James 🙂

By: James A. Beggs

James A. Beggs — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 19:54:52 +0000

I kinda screwed up myself, but I’m not sure how I could have avoided it; I feel like a victim of circumstance.

So, I had bought a car and had it almost paid off, when it threw a rod and got ruined – was going to need a new motor. I needed a car, so I broke down and bought a 2010 Toyota Prius; since I put on about 40k business miles a year, not even counting personal miles, it seemed like a wise choice when taking into account gas prices. Meanwhile the other car sat there gathering dust with a ruined motor.

But then I got married, and my new wife and I needed a larger vehicle for when I had my kids, so we could all be in one car taking trips. So we traded in her car at a small used car dealership who was friends of my boss, and got a “good deal” on the suv. It was $2k under blue book.

Since then it’s become a money pit and we are doing repairs on it every month – sometimes twice a month! It’s driving us insane.

And now, with that debt, we are stuck, since its payoff is $19k, my prius is around the same, both are essentially under water here and getting their value would not be possible; I did manage to get my motor on my other car replaced, and tried to sell it at the low end of blue book value, and its in good shape now, but no one is nibbling, and this SUV’s constant repairs are eating us alive.

So now we are feeling trapped. Try and trade in the SUV to get a newer, more reliable car, and see our payments go up even higher? We really need at least a 6 seater for our larger family when my kids from my previous relationship are here, but the two cars aren’t going to sell for what we owe, and the third we can’t seem to sell despite it being in good shape.

And now we are looking to adding even more debt just to get out from under this money pit that’s eating us out of house and home. The real problem? I used to buy the older, used cars, and get them paid off quickly, but despite taking my best precautions, I’ve now had two cars that have had significant problems after purchasing them that have cost me far more than what they should have, thus making me very gunshy now about older used cars.

Not sure what to do. I really don’t want to add even more debt, but both cars HAVE to be reliable: I drive 40k miles a year just for work, and my kids live 4 hours away from me, I see them every other weekend, and drive a lot for that reason too. Because of those two reasons, I can’t have either car a POS that keeps breaking down and needing repairs, but lord, I am so tired of being in debt too.