I thought you meant poke fun at others as opposed to women referring to themselves. For this thread I wanted to make sure that there have been cases of women referring to their own decisions and rationalizing them as “girl math”.
Regardless of gender there are a lot of adult-aged people who use a lot of childish magical thinking as they cavort heedlessly through their everyday life.
New cars are fun. New car loans are booorrrrrrriiiiinnnnngggg. It’s not any deeper than that. When you’re age 10. The problem comes in when a 30-something is using 10yo “thinking” to run their life.
The lenders have broken the code that they can make a LOT of money by slowly drowning a lot of child-like consumers. So they do.
And that it’s become near-impossible to live in the U.S. without a car outside a handful of expensive cities.
Personal finances are not just a simple, “only do what results in the lowest overall cost”. You have to be able to get there. Sure it would be great to buy the car you need and only have to pay for 3 years. But you can’t get there. You need more monthly money for other expenses. So you agree to pay more interest over 4 or 5 years in return for more money for your other bills. For many people a longer loan isn’t the “worst” way, it’s the only way. The world cannot operate without borrowed money.
Understandable, but at issue here is then taking that car with the 7 year term and trading it in 2 years later for the newest shiniest one.
This is true for a substantial number of people, for whom my sympathy is thin… but it goes to the other extreme as well. I have a friend who after long work, dug themselves out from under this sort of scenario but with clunkers. He made some very poor financial calls when he was first out on his own, and his credit was poor. So when he had to get a new car after an accident, he could only manage a clunker. Which was financed over three years, but died in 14 months, so he had to buy another clunker (all he could afford again), financing it over 5 years, only for it to die after three. So yeah, rolling over negative equity because he didn’t have the means to do otherwise. After the last experience, he bought a NEW car to break the cycle of clunkers, but had two cars of rollover debt making it extremely hard on him. But he did get out from the cycle, despite buying a more-expensive than needed model.
Dave Ramsey (I know) talks about this quite a lot. Many people are just willing themselves into lifetime poverty via thinking they need fancy cars and trucks (e.g. a $60,000 car on a $60,000 annual income. Some people are just insane, or very dim. Oh, and, dealerships are absolutely predators on the financially illiterate.)
I sometimes struggle with a bit of class envy, but every time I see a fancy car I like, I tell myself it’s likely leased or underwater, which it probably is.
An aside, and touching on the concurrent Maxwell Apartment/House thread, when I was closing on my home 23 years ago, my realtor said that a lot of people were driving their house payment around town. Far less true NOW given the substantial increase in home prices, but not without a fragment of truth as well.
This is it. They they only think about the payment, not the dept. Used to be a 3-4 year car loan that they had a reasonable expectation of paying off. Now 7-9 year loans that will never be payed off. More money for the car than their rent. If the payment fits they don’t think about the dept load.
Drove by my local Ford dealer the other day. A new Ford Bronco was $90,000, for a Bronco. People are snatching them up as fast as they can be made.
In the days before leasing became a widespread thing, I had a boss who liked driving new (up to 2 years old) cars, so he’d work with the car dealers and get a favorable (but still underwater) deal.
Eventually, he scratched his itch by going to work at a car dealership.
Was he married? Is he still, or do you know?
He was and AFAICT is still married to the same person.
OTOH he was always good at sales and probably made more as a full-time salesman for a car dealer than herding cats as a boss.
I have always called those “I can’t pay child support trucks”, because around here, that is the exact demographic that seems to drive them.
When my SIL went to the “No Kings” rally in her town a few months ago, she posted on Facebook that “a guy with a penis truck” made a preliminary move towards running them over, until everyone held up their phones.
He was partnered in a long term relationship, but I don’t remember if they were married or not. Since I haven’t seen his mom in several years, I don’t know his current status. He’s probably still a dumbshit, though.
I’m 58, have owned dozens of cars, and have never made a car payment in my life. I buy used, usually very used, w/ cash. The idea of taking out a 10 year (or whatever) loan to buy a car is completely foreign to me.
I use a car for transportation, not show. Two cars (both bought new for cash) have transported me over the last 35 years. Curiously, when I bought my current car in 2007, the salesman said to me that assumed I was paying cash and didn’t discuss finance at all. How did he know? I was dressed as usual in jeans and a flannel shirt.
Age, general disposition, also the type of car/dealership you’re in. An older guy who rocks up to the Lexus or BMW dealership dressed in jeans and a flannel, who doesn’t look nervous being there, is someone who knows they can afford the cars they’re looking at. In fact, trying to look poorer than you are is something car salesmen have seen time and again.
Maybe so, but if you’re in a situation where your options are six year car note or anything else, then anything else is almost certainly the right decision. Nobody needs a new car; everyone could have their needs met with used ones. There’s going to be a sweet spot between what you can afford and what meets your specific transportation and reliability needs. Almost never is that sweet spot a car within the last couple of model years.
Financial stability is something you build slowly, decision-by-decision, not fall into through luck. And getting a very long term note for a new car is NOT the sort of decision that builds that financial stability. Nor is doing that, and rolling it into a new car four years in.
And that’s what I’m getting at- if your goal is basically to have a late model car all the time, and you’ve accepted that you’re going to have a car payment in perpetuity, you’re probably better off leasing.
There’s nothing wrong with buying new, but you do have to go into it armed with knowledge of what you’re signing up for, and what it actually means. And that the salesman isn’t the real shark circling in the water, it’s the “finance guy” in the office once you’ve agreed to buy the car.
Maybe so, but if you’re living on the edge already, then unexpected maintenance costs are something you can’t afford, nor can you afford to miss work because your car broke down, which could get you fired. Of course if you’re in that situation then you should be buying a Corolla or Civic rather than a lifted F250.
I agree with @Bump. A common way some people rationalize the purchase of a new car is, “Well, I really don’t want a new car. But I can’t tolerate or afford having the car break down, so I have to buy a new one.” But this doesn’t stand up to logical scrutiny. The truth is that they want a new car because it’s… well, new. Which is perfectly fine, but some people are not honest about it for some reason.