this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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A car is absolutely doable without financing l. It's a poverty trap to finance a car. What you can't do is have a brand new car.
it's fine to finance a car you can afford. it may even be benefincial. i can take aout a 20K loan at a near 0 apr, i can take that 20K and invest it and get a return on it. which is better than dumping it all at once into a depreciating asset.
the problem is that people fiance cars they can't afford. like 50K gas guzzlers with massive maintenance bills
Having 20k plus the cash flow to pay a 20k loan is a totally different scenario than buying a car for cash. If you need that 20k to pay the 333/month, it's stupid to trust the market isn't going to go down, and simple savings would net you maybe $500.
the market hasnt' gone down in like 15 years dude. the government will prop it up if it does go down.
It's gone down moth over month many times though. If you are dependant on that principle month to month it's insane to trust the market.
When I was car shopping at the end of 2024, I quickly realized the best bang for the buck was around $10-12k because at that price you could get a low-mid range vehicle that was around 6 years old with around 100k miles. Obviously some vehicles in that price range would be older with fewer miles, some would be newer with more miles, but that seemed to be about the price range where you'd get a vehicle which you could reasonably expect to be mechanically sound for at least another 2-3 years. Less than that and you got into vehicles that were far more worn either by age or by mileage, so you'd be trading upfront payment for additional maintenance costs.
$10k is a lot of money to save up. That's about my entire emergency fund right now. That's almost 3 years of socking away $300 a month, or 2 years at $500 a month. Simply put vehicle ownership is horrendously expensive especially for folks making close to minimum wage
you can't afford a car if you only saved up 10K over 3 years.
Ideally yes, but on top of your normal expenses socking away $800/mo is a ton, especially since we're almost certainly talking about a young adult, fairly freshly on their own who's probably only making around 30-40k per year. When each paycheck is under a thousand dollars every couple of weeks that money disappears fast especially with the financial discipline one can realistically expect of a young adult
I don't think I was super human and I had zero issues saving $1200/mo on a 2.2k/mo salary.
but i lived with multiple roommates, ate cheap food, and didn't party.
I'm vacationing with my upper-middle class sibling. They rented a car for the week ... for $970! for one week! It takes me months to save up that much money! And they do this every year!
The wealth gap is rapidly increasing.
that's cheap. how much did you think it should cost?
it might have been way cheaper if she didn't get insurance. that usually adds 30-40% to the cost
Car rentals are so expensive nowadays. Enough so that I've never done it in my adult life. Its always expensive enough that it makes some alternative make way more sense, whether that's driving our own vehicle somewhere or just winging it with public transit
This is why we drive when we go on our yearly trip back to the east coast to visit family. Flying would cost the same once you factor in a hotel stop midway, and would save 8+ hours if we were actually able to drive without stopping, but no one we visit lives near an airport and transportation to/from the airport adds a ton of cost.
It used to be, but these days the average person can barely afford groceries without a loan.
Same with phones. Buy a second-hand flagship from a couple of years ago (eg pixel 8), and use a pre-paid plan.
It's not just a few hundred dollars saved on the phone, it's also a few hundred per year on less overpriced contracts.
Prepaid plans have to be more competitively priced because you can switch at will.
I buy all my phones off eBay from reputable resellers. There are plenty that make a living at refurbishing phones, rate each one on a scale, post pics of the phone you will receive. I pay around $120 for mine, $180 if it's a bangin' deal and I really want that unit.
https://caredge.com/guides/used-car-price-trends-for-2025
https://moneyzine.com/personal-finance/savings-statistics/
... that's as of 2022.
Its worse now, considerably.
But, even assuming 2022 savings levels... that's half the population that would need their savings to multiply by at least a factor of ~x42.5, to be able to afford the average used car, without financing.
... You are wildly, incredibly out of touch.
Sure, yes, its technically possible, technically doable, in approximately the same way that it's technically possible and doable that I could become a millionaire by the end of 2026.
Yep, its a poverty trap to finance a car.
Correct.
... and that is the only viable choice for people in car centric, car dependent American, people who don't have thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in savings, which is the vast majority of people.
In conclusion: America is a poverty trap.
... Metric had a song about this, what, nearly two decades ago?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fYbrb2YYqdo
The average cost of a car is wildly skewed by luxury models and the absurd prices of new cars. The market has gotten more expensive, so it is more difficult to find reliable cars in the sub 5k range, but under 10k is possible. It's possible to save a few hundred bucks a month and get progressively better cars without financing them, because depreciation isn't significant at the low end of the market.
Yep. And?
Its also reality.
Most used cars on the market are luxury cars that are 5 years or less old... because car companiea just largely stopped making non luxury cars.
This is what the used car market looks like right now, I don't care that its abnormal, I care about trying to evaluate you statement ... in reality, as it currently exists.
This is the idea you're not getting:
No.
Its not.
Not for half the population.
Pay is too low, costs of living are too high.
People largely cannot actually save a few hundred bucks a month, all that goes towards existing debt payments and increasing rent utilities and food costs... and fucking health insurance.
You don't understand how many people were operating on razor thin margins, and now, huge numbers of people are running net negative, getting stuck in some new poverty debt trap, maybe this time its chaining loans to keep buying groceries.
Your evaluation of what is possible is again, yes, technically possible, for a very small amount of people... but generally... it is laughably and wildly insufficient, useless to the vast majority of people it is potentially relevant to, because of how much the overall situation has changed, because of how out of touch you are with the basic parameters of the situation.
The US is a society where car ownership is mandatory to participate in society... and at least half of society cannot actually afford that expense, financed or not.
We need a systemic solution, otherwise, we will experience a systemic collapse.
How to skip steps 2-4?
Pay cash for a car that runs. You aren't getting a loan without income in the first place.
Oh, ok then.
I'm 18, just outta high school, have no money, no friends or family willing to cosign a car, public transit sucks where I live.
How do I get a job?
Or car?
Which one do I get first, when they each require the other?
You get a bike and hate life for a few years.
Around me a 2 hour bike ride one way is not abnormal for a commute. Across freeways and up mountains. It's extremely not bike friendly here.