Originally Posted by
catherine
Back in 2007 when I was climbing the corporate ladder and we were making up for all of our lack in previous years, we purchased 1) a brand new Honda Fit for DH and 2) 9 months later I bought a brand new Toyota Prius.
our combined payments were almost $1000 for 5 years. We paid them off in 2011/2012, and for the last 6 years we have had no car payments (and very minor repair/maintenance bills). I can't imagine putting ourselves in that position again at this stage of our lives. I'm being more frugal with mileage at this point. When I travel on business I rent a car and charge it to the client. I stay put whenever I can. I plan on getting at least 80k miles on my Prius; DH probably won't be that lucky because he tends to do more driving than I do.
Car payments are not fun. I have been doing the Dave Ramsey "car sinking fund" for a while, socking $400 away in on online account, to cover the need for a replacement vehicle.
People don't realize the cost of interest. If you take all that interest (which they don't tell you about when you sign all those loan documents) and then invest it, you are so much better off. It's like winning twice.