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June 2011 Moms
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Car buying advice

nfrtnynfrtny member
in June 2011 Moms

DH and I have had one car for the last two years. It got very trying at the end of my pregnancy, because I was working 40 hours a week and DH was working 50. We knew it wouldn't be the best thing financially to buy another car before we had DS because we really weren't sure where we'd be at at this point.

So here's my dilemma.. I'm thinking we're going to have somewhere around 7000 at the beginning of next year. give or take a few hundred probably. Right now we have a '07 fusion. I'm not sure if we should buy something cheap, and only use a portion of our savings, buy a car with all of our savings, or buy a newer used car and finance however much money we need for it. 

At the beginning of next year we'll have I think 2 and a half years left on our current car loan. We definitely could afford an extra car loan, but I'm not sure if we want to be in a position where we have two car loans and it will take even longer to get a house then. 

So, WWYD? Spend some of it, spend all of it, or spend it all and then some? TIA!

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Re: Car buying advice

  • dannie2011dannie2011 member
    This is just me but if you're trying to get a house I woul avoid another car loan.  I would find a decent used car. With that kind of money you could get a real nice car and not have to worry about car payments.

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  • vigurlvigurl member

    imagedannie2011:
    This is just me but if you're trying to get a house I woul avoid another car loan.  I would find a decent used car. With that kind of money you could get a real nice car and not have to worry about car payments.

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  • LaRue86LaRue86
    I would look for an old camry or accord for the least amount possible. Save the rest for a down payment or even pay extra on your current loan. Wait until you are in your house to spend a decent chunk on a newer car.
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  • cassoppeacassoppea
    Can you afford monthly payments? A used car may seem like a good idea but if you are spending 7k on it it's either going to be a junky car or it's going to have a lot of mileage. That means no warranty and more chance of problems. I would put the 7k towards a down payment and finance a car that will last, has a good track record with repairs and is cheap to fix. You can finance a preowned car for a bit cheaper from the dealer and still get a warranty too. That will save you a little money. Maybe a Honda or Toyota. In the long run, this is the better option. If you can spare a few hundred extra a month. With Memorial day coming up, there will be sales and dealers are looking to push cars off the lot. So you can negotiate pretty well.

    ETA: I just saw the part about buying a house too. If a few hundred a month is going to change your ability to buy a house at this point, then is a house going to stretch you too far? I guess you have to decide at this point what is more important. At least with a house, you have equity. A car is just a money pit.

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  • nfrtnynfrtny member

    imagecassoppea:
    Can you afford monthly payments? A used car may seem like a good idea but if you are spending 7k on it it's either going to be a junky car or it's going to have a lot of mileage. That means no warranty and more chance of problems. I would put the 7k towards a down payment and finance a car that will last, has a good track record with repairs and is cheap to fix. You can finance a preowned car for a bit cheaper from the dealer and still get a warranty too. That will save you a little money. Maybe a Honda or Toyota. In the long run, this is the better option. If you can spare a few hundred extra a month. With Memorial day coming up, there will be sales and dealers are looking to push cars off the lot. So you can negotiate pretty well. ETA: I just saw the part about buying a house too. If a few hundred a month are going to change your ability to buy a house at this point, then is a house going to stretch yu too far? I guess you have to decide at this point what is more important. At least with a house, you have equity. A car is just a money pit.

    I really don't know when buying a house will happen. We just recently started being able to save money, because I started working more then I was. There are at least 20 houses that are foreclosed within five minutes of us, so finding a nice house for 50k or less wouldn't be difficult. If we bought a house, we would definitely be saving money, or at the very least we would be spending the same as in our apartment. 

    Idk... at the beginning of next year our car will be 6 years old, and have 90k on it. I was pretty surprised when I started looking at used cars the other day... They are a lot more expensive than when we bought the car we have now! It's really just becoming too much to only have one car. DH is a restaurant manager, so, three nights a week he works 4PM to 2AM, and then the other two days he's working shifts like 10 to 8 and 11 to 9, and I don't want to drive to pick him up that late, so I'm usually just at home ten hours a day without a car. Can't run errands, can't go grocery shopping, can't go to the laundromat.... I'm starting to go crazy with just one car :/

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  • MrsIMrsI member

    Do what is in your means but if that is a used car please buy the extended warranty!  We bought a 2007 in 2009 and three months later the engine blew.  I would have cost us $15-20k to fix it, more than we paid for the car.  With our extended warranty we only paid $200.  And then when three other things went wrong we only paid $100 each time instead of the other thousands it would have cost. 

    Also when we bought the dealership promised they were getting us the best loan they could with "our credit."  Well I knew I had really great credit so this didn't make sense to me.  We ended up going to a credit union and refinancing and pay $150 less a month in just interest and will pay it off in the same time frame.  So if you do finance anything shop around for a pre-approval before going to the dealership!

    Also with memorial day the big dealerships usually do 0% interest for x-years, definitely the way to go if you do need to finance.

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