I remember the way sweat pooled on my top lip and dripped down my neck inside my mom’s faded Mazda on 110-degree summer days in the Sonoran desert.
“Is it cold up there?” I once asked from the backseat when I was 8 years old. The air conditioning never seemed to reach us kids.
My parents always drove older cars. Mazda, Toyota, and Honda were their favorites, nothing flashy. Many of my friends’ parents had newer vehicles with automatic doors and leather interiors. Mine didn’t care. They believed you should own a car outright.
I absorbed that lesson early. For two decades, I only bought cars I could pay for in cash.
Last summer, though, the air conditioning went out in my 2008 Honda Pilot after a string of other repairs. I was tired of feeling like a mechanic. With my three kids to shuttle around, I wanted something more reliable — preferably, one with a backup camera.
I started wanting a newer, nicer car
In the past, I’ve aimed for cars around 100,000 miles — old enough to have depreciated significantly, but not so old that major repairs are inevitable at the onset. It’s the sweet spot if you’re paying cash.
Then a friend who shared my pay-in-full philosophy bought an almost-new Subaru Ascent. She’d done the math, she told me. Tired of the monthly repairs on her old van and the unpredictability, a car payment just made sense for her.
It’s so nice to have something newer, she admitted.
Sitting in her car, I thought: If she can justify it, so can I. I work hard. Doesn’t my family deserve something reliable?
If I’m honest, I was also sick of having the oldest car in our school’s parking lot. It was humbling to pull up and notice how much my old clunker stuck out among the sea of newer vehicles.
I decided to sell my Pilot for a few thousand dollars.
I started searching for a new vehicle
I only had about $12,000 to $13,000 in cash to put down, which wouldn’t stretch far for an eight-passenger vehicle in today’s market. I decided it was time to bite the bullet and accept the car payment. I told a broker my budget was $24,000 or less.
When she came back with a 2017 Honda Odyssey for $27,000 with 73,000 miles, I balked. Then I kept looking and realized it had actually been a decent deal, but the van was long gone.
Eventually, I bought a 2022 Honda Odyssey with around 53,000 miles for $33,819.17. I put $11,000 down and financed $22,819.17 at 5.39% interest over four years, leaving me with a $530.80 monthly payment.
In just nine months, I’ve paid $4,777, bringing my total out-of-pocket cost for the van to nearly $16,000. I still owe about $18,800.
At first, we were thrilled with our new van, but buyer’s remorse set in
For the first few months, every time we climbed in, my family would say, “We love this car!” The smooth ride, Bluetooth, leather interior, and backup camera made life easier. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel a small sense of pride pulling into the school parking lot.
But the novelty wore off.
Now, when I look at the calendar and see another $530 payment coming, I don’t feel pride; I feel stressed. On top of that, I now pay much higher annual registration fees in my state, which are based on my van’s assessed value plus other statutory fees, likely $600 this year, plus about $400 a year more in car insurance than my old Pilot.
Over the life of the loan, I’ll also pay around $2,600 in interest. I know it’s not a significant amount, but still a reminder that every month my money is going out the door.
All of these additional expenses make the cost of “newer and nicer” higher than I realized.
For most of my adult life, I owed no one for my car. Yes, older cars require maintenance. But they also come with something new cars don’t: months you owe nothing at all. If money was tight one month, I could delay a repair. There wasn’t a lender expecting payment on a fixed date.
I’ve found that comfort is nice and so is having a smooth ride, but financial freedom is nicer.
Yes, a newer car made my life feel more comfortable, but it also made my finances less free. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss that freedom until it was gone.
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