I just thought that he wanted a significantly newer car than mine, but he wants a new one! I think that I had mentioned this to him:
Make It Happen Mondays: Dream Car - daveramsey.com I read that a week or two ago and wanted to bring it up here. There are eight people on here with cars from 2,015 and fifty-two 2,014s, but 388 cars from 2,000. He [gave] many of the usual excuses for a new car--you just buy someone else's problems, you end up purchasing a new car through repairs, etc.
I have bought seven cars. One hit an elk, one hit a pickup, and one hit a Harley--none of those were my fault, and undoubtedly, a new car still would have been totaled. Insurance replaced two of my cars, the only two that had comprehensive. The others cost $2,500-$3,400.
I loved my Prelude, but I spent too much on repairs, $2,500 for the car, $2,500 in repairs in less than four years, and then the same amount in just a few months.
I should have been better off making payments on a $7,000 car, but I made many mistakes with my first car, and received some very bad advice.
Thanks, Mom!
The MSRP for my HX was $13,944. I did not have a job when I bought my car and it was two years before I had a stable one, but Dad gave me $2,500.
Had I used the money as a down payment, I would have owed $11,444, and since I did not have a credit history or a job, I cannot expect to have obtained a better interest rate than what Dave Ramsay states to be the average: 9.6%. Then my monthly payment would have been $240.90.
$240.90 * 48 = $11,563,20. After four years, I would have still had one year's payments. Except, how much would comprehensive insurance cost me instead of liability? Also, I paid five thousand in repairs, the Civic would have cost me an additional $6,563.20, roughly what it was worth?
When I finally had stable work, I was struggling with credit card debt. My parents convinced me to get a credit card when I started college to pay for my textbooks. I should have known better than accepting the first offer, it was terrible!
I did not pay off my credit cards until several years later, when I joined the Army. Since I was always paying interest, I did not always have the money to make repairs, which became more expensive later.
My coworker is twenty and I do not want him getting into so much debt this early in his life, but I told him that I would try to not discuss it further.