[Flakbadger]

A Toyota Tercel is an alright vehicle, definitely better than your 10 MPG. I guess it depends on your price range, but other vehicles to consider are 90's Civics, Toyota Echo or Yaris. My max price range was 13k, my car was just under that. With my trade-in I'm only financing $6,800. If you haven't run some budget numbers, you should. I calculated it out both before and after I bought my car, and found that my "before" calculation was quite conservative. I went from 16 MPG to 40 and made my car payments plus bought gas PLUS saved $100. It's entirely possible you could do the same.