The average new car payment is almost $800 for 60 months. Cars are a depreciating asset, and the car value nose dives for the first 2 years. People that are trading in before the 4th year get hammered. They got inflated trade in allowances on thier trade in and paid at least MSRP with high interest rates from 2020-2023. No need for an accounting degree to know that this was bound to happen. But hey, if people didn't buy new and take the losses, there would be no used cars to buy.
My car is twenty years old but only has 60K miles, and is in great condition. Recently I rented a small SUV and it was fun to drive. But was it $30K of fun? What new feature would it give me, something that my car doesn't already have? A few bells and whistles, but nothing compelling.
Owning a new car is one of the worst investments, that you can do. Once you drive it off the lot it already lost 5k in value and will keep losing value from there on out.
Being upside down in a car is a totally foreign concept to me. My daily driver is 33 years old and I bought it for half it's original value with only 15k on it. Instead of wasting money on cars I put every penny I could scrape together into California real estate. My wife and I are now looking for our 12th property to purchase with cash. I guess it all comes down to what you value.
