He had money but he paid off his loans. It could be a necessity for him to travel.

And 1500-2000 per month is close to the USA average income, although he said that is how much that will not go to bills. The way he stated it, that is his savable income after bills are paid, which would make his income not that bad at all.

This post was edited by Archer on Nov 18 2013 11:03am

My credit is fairly high



I wont have student loans when I buy a car
ill only owe a few thousand to my parents
my income is just fine. The $1500-$2000 I said I have is AFTER I pay for food, bills, gas, normal expenses.
The only reason I dont want a down payment is because I plan on putting all of the money I could be putting towards it into my loan which is over 6% interest. I can finance a car at 1.99 easily so paying more on that makes no sense.




I dont think i have enough other deductions for it to help me.
I am required to cash out the $7.5k I have in stock because I'm "retiring".
My bonds are matured.
I make way less interest in my savings account than I pay to my loans.
How is paying off my student loans less than a year after graduating a bad idea again?

I need a 4x4 and I want something fairly nice.
Ive got my Mustang, a couple jet skis, and a couple grand in firearms plus several guitars I could sell off easily if I really needed money.
Ive laid out a pretty solid budget to where I can EASILY afford a car payment and save money rather quickly. Im just tired of paying so much damn interest on my loans.


The point of the thread was to find out of the lack of a down payment hurts interest rates, which I seem to have gotten an answer on.

Good luck! When you get it, post it on here! I want to see.

Im not sure how soon it will be but it will definitely be before the end of the year.
$11k is pending payment on my loan right now, I should have the other 6.X going later this week.
I had been shopping for a higher mileage wrangler for $15-20k but now I'm thinking something lightly used for $25ish would be better. The interior on the 2011+ is way nicer and the 2012 have the 3.6 which is another plus.
I kinda dont want to pay that much but Im pretty confident I can pay it off fairly quickly. Plus since the $300 a month for my loan will be gone it will pretty much just take the place of that + a couple hundred.
My insurance will barely even change which is nice.

if i were you, i would put down a small down payment, it doesnt hurt in fact it wil make your monthly payments cheaper, and if you sign for lets say 3-5 years youll end up paying for interest nearly the whole ime. i would suggest do some math and see how much your confortable paying a month to where it leaves your pockets still full. that way you can keep up on other bills and things you buy , also if you make a payment on your car loan and add in a axtra 1-2oo dollars as a princicple payment youll pay off the interest faster .

It's not bad but based off looking around myself, some places' interest rates vary off credit history/down payment/length of loan

Unless it is an incentive rate through a collaborating bank (still dependent on a credit requirement) the down payment definitely effects interest rate. A shorter loan term or biweekly payment will lower it as well. The down payment gets you a lower rate because it decreases the loan to value ratio of the loan. That decreases the risk the bank is taking on the loan. That is especially true on new cars because it will depreciate several thousand dollars the minute you drive it off the lot. If you financed 100% of the car the lender is now liable for that immediate loss of value if you default.

Credit unions and incentive rates can get you around that. If you can secure a good rate, keep the cash in your pocket. The opposite strategy, the one I tend to use, is to put down a big enough down payment to ensure you can get out from under the loan easily if you need to. You never know what is going to happen these days. Jobs are less stable. If you make sure you owe less than trade in value of the vehicle you can get rid of it at the drop of a hat. I don't like having a car payment anyway, so the faster I can pay something off the better.

If you don't put down that down payment, make sure you have access to enough cash to make up the difference. If you do one of those two things, you will never have anything repossessed if you fall on hard times. JSP snobs laugh all you want, it can happen to anybody, a lot quicker than you think. Few people carry the recommended 3 to 6 months of income in savings these days.

This is some good advice

Very true these days... im glad I put a good DP on my focus. I could get around $10K for it if I had to get rid of it and I owe about $7k. Its huge piece of mind not having to worry about that shit.

Yep. I'm in the same boat with my Ram. I got it for trade in value and put a good sum down. It has only depreciated a little over $2k in 2 years and 25k miles. If I lost my job tomorrow I could dump the truck and put $10k in my pocket. Bank loans are a slippery slope just like high limit credit cards.