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I'm 23 years old. I just got my license a few months ago. I still live with my parents.
I make $11.25 per hour. I work 40 hours a week.
Right now I'm paying:
Rent: $250.00
Utility: $160.00
Cell Phone: $40.00
Student Loan: $170.00
I'm looking for an affordable used car. Anywhere from $4,000-$6,000.
I'm also looking for affordable insurance.
Toyota Prius! Google Toyota Prius reliability, quality, and cost of operation. I love my 2010. You should be able to find a nice 2010 in your price range. I don't baby it, but maintain it. 48mpg on regular gas. I googled reliability: "Aside from getting a whopping 52 mpg overall, the 2020 Prius is exceptionally reliable. J.D. Power gives it a “Great” Quality & Reliability score, and Consumer Reports has scored it five out of five in reliability every year since 2009. All-wheel drive is newly available for 2020, providing buyers even more value.May 9, 2020
Cheap Japanese cars. I have a ‘97 Civic, paid $2500 including TT+L. I’m averaging mid-40s for MPG, though I do hypermile in a mild way. I did have to replace the alternator and the AC took a dump, but otherwise it works perfectly fine.
Before that I had a ‘00 Toyota Echo, which I got for free. It was kinda awful in a lot of ways, but it got me to 290k miles before we parted ways. Would have cost me about $100 plus a Saturday to fix it, but I was ready to move on. Lifetime average was a little north of 43mpg, using a lot of the same mild hypermiling techniques. Not counting stuff like fuel or insurance, it got by for 7 years and close to 100k miles for about $800, so the TCO was pretty freaking good.
I'm 23 years old. I just got my license a few months ago. I still live with my parents.
I make $11.25 per hour. I work 40 hours a week.
Right now I'm paying:
Rent: $250.00
Utility: $160.00
Cell Phone: $40.00
Student Loan: $170.00
I'm looking for an affordable used car. Anywhere from $4,000-$6,000.
I'm also looking for affordable insurance.
Look for a used (excuse me: pre owned) Toyota. Run an internet search for this price range. At this stage you are probably looking at no later than 2010 model. I have an '09 that I got at the upper end of your price range.
You need to live where you can WALK to work (and pay less for housing too).
No car for you
I agree. OP, people making $11.50/hr. can't a afford a car. Even if y ou were given a car, you couldn't afford to maintain it, insure it, buy gas, etc. Cars are astonishingly expensive to have. Live where you can walk or take transit to work. It's a much better and more stress-free life, than driving to work.
.......I'm looking for an affordable used car. Anywhere from $4,000-$6,000........
A couple of things to do first.
Go and talk to an insurance agent and discuss how much insurance is going to cost you, and how the cost is affected by what car you buy. Some cars cost more to insure than others.
Go to a local credit union and ask for an appointment with the loan officer. Discuss with him what it takes to get a car loan, what the cost of the loan is, and what sort of restrictions they have on what they will finance. This is important information. My credit union advertises car loans in the neighborhood of 3% interest. If you go to one of the buy here/ finance here car lots, they charge more like 25% interest. Know all about financing a car before you even start looking.
Save up as much cash as you can. The less you finance, the more affordable it becomes to own a car.
Learn something about mechanics. There are a lot of cars for sale in the $4,000-$6,000 price range and most of them are junk with expensive repairs needed or coming up very shortly. You will have to sift through a lot of cars to find a really good one in that price range. They are available, but you will have to hunt carefully.
You are not going to find a sexy car that runs reliably in that price range. Resign yourself to a good solid reliable plain vehicle. Price will be lower and maintenance will be lower.
Sharpen up your pencil and get out your calculator.
At one point, I was starting a new job and one of my coworkers who was also just starting, showed up with a brand new car.
He claimed that financing was so much cheaper on a brand new car instead of a used car that the payment for the used car and the new car were about the same and with the new car, he got several years of warranty.
I needed a car, too, so I carefully looked into it and I also bought a brand new car. it was a very plain one with excellent gas mileage and I got credit union financing that was really inexpensive. That was better for me than a cheaper car that I would have to make repairs on and that cost a higher interest rate that increased the payment..
There is a Kia dealer in my town that sells cars with a lifetime warranty. The bottom of the line Kias are pretty cheap and get really excellent gas mileage.
There is a Honda dealer who also offers lifetime warranty, but i don't think that Honda are nearly as cheap to buy. But I would shop before I decided because I don't know what the bottom of the line Honda costs.
Have your resistance ready and don't let the salesman pressure you into a car while you are fact gathering.
Again, the more cash you can put into the purchase the better. Also, sometimes credit unions (and Costco) have special deals that they have arranged with the dealership that will save you some money on the purchase price.
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