Opinions Needed

Maybe if you offer that you can instead of the $300 car payment then being somewhat absorbed by the new car he wants...you can put instead put money aside monthly...say $150 and then at the end of the year or in whatever season is nicest for you guys...you can take a vacation together?
 
Or buy a one time expense item you guys BOTH want...sometimes people just get the itch for something "new" when they're giving up something else that will leave a surplus of $$. Like a big ole TV or new Fridge or etc. Yeah it will cost but it won't cost every MONTH..lol!
 
I guess the most responsible thing would be to put it aside in a retirement fund, or pay off credit debt or something like that, but that's so BORING lol!
 
Oh, I think it's TOTALLY possible to live with 1 car esp if you have family in the area and a good back up plan for emergencies or decent public transport for said same.
 

It sounds to me like you are more financially responsible than your DH.  Would that be a fair and accurate observation?  []
 
A couple of things come to mind here.  First, it NEVER makes ECONOMIC sense to buy a brand new vehicle.  Even if you drive it until the wheels fall off, you take a major depreciation hit right away.  If you buy a one year old "program car," someone else paid for that, yet you still have a practically new car that probably cost you thousands of dollars less than the same car, brand new.
 
Leasing a vehicle FOR PERSONAL USE almost never makes sense either.  The only good thing you can say about leasing is it sometimes lets you drive a nicer car than you can afford to buy.
 
There is A LOT to be said for not having a car payment.  Look at what the payment is on BOTH of the vehicles you currently have and think of what you could do if you had that money, every month, to spend as you wish.
 
More than once in my life I have found myself with a car that I really couldn't afford.  In 1983, I bought a brand new Z-28 Camaro.  5 speed.  T-tops.  An awesome car.  It took about 3 months of making the payment before the pain of doing so outweighed any and all advantages I might have initially seen.  Unfortunately, I still had 4 years to pay on the car.  Now I drive a 1999 Jeep Wrangler that I paid cash for.  The car I owned before this one was a 1994 Chevy Caprice, that I paid cash for.  For a number of years prior to that, I had a series of $500-$1000 cars that I paid cash for.  I would drive them for a year then usually sell them for what I paid for them.  IOW, I drove a free car.
 
I am not going to say I can't afford a car payment because, I can.  I know of several people who pay $500 + every month for a car.  That makes no sense to me anymore.  Contrary to what Glenda and others here might think, maybe I am FINALLY growing up.  []

To be honest, he is much better at actually putting money in the savings account than I am, but I am less likely to spend money to begin with.  []  Some say I am on the cheapy side, but I call it frugal []
 
The car he wants is a year-old, so that does help with the cost, but not matter how you work it, it will definitely be more than what we are paying now on the car I want to keep (about $100 more per month).  But his thought is that it will still be cheaper than making both car payments.  Right now with both cars we are paying $500 a month total.  With just the one car, we will only be paying $240.  If we don't get the extra car, we could actually pay off the one car in less than a year if we just double up on the payments.  But, I don't want to guarantee that since I want to save some of that.
 
His concern is that the car I want to keep will start having problems and will be out of warranty in the next 6 months.  Mind you, we really haven't had anything major go wrong with it, but you know how that goes, once the warranty expires the engine will fall out.
 
I think his concern is that if we go down to one car, we will then have to rely on an older car out of warranty, where if we had a newer car, at least it will be under warranty and be able to get a loaner from the dealership if it goes in for service. 
 
He just doesn't want to listen to this reasoning.  He is definitely stuck on the whole out of warranty issue.  Any ideas to get that out of his head.  We are both extremely stubborn![8|]
 
 

We live in an area where we most definitely could not get by with just one car. But it sounds like you could. So my advice is get rid of the leased car, keep your current car and finish off the payments. Put extra money aside like Gina suggested and take a trip or use it to buy your dream car sometime in the future.
 
Like Billy said, buying a new car is not really a good idea. Financially it just doesn't make sense unless you have a lot of extra money to blow. If you're going to get another car, look for a low mileage car (or SUV) that's a year or two old.
 
I can tell you from personal experience that not having a car payment is the best feeling. We just paid of DH's truck two months ago. Now we own both of our vehicles, and they're both Toyota's, so they'll last a long time. Having the extra money that we were putting towards that car payment is great!

ORIGINAL: probe1957
Leasing a vehicle FOR PERSONAL USE almost never makes sense either.  The only good thing you can say about leasing is it sometimes lets you drive a nicer car than you can afford to buy.

the only other good reason i could come up with is that my wife wants a new car about every three years anyways. so we decided to lease. (at least for her car). this is our first lease and i am worried we will get burned at turn in time, so it may also be our last lease. only time will tell. (lease is up in Jan 0

otherwise, i would buy. right now i own my car (1994 honda civic) and have since 2000 (bought it used in 1997). i would like to have a newer car, but i sure do like having no payments.[]

Don't count on getting a loaner anymore.  My daughter was in an accident recently (not her fault) with her brand new car, and she couldn't get one.  And she has a full time job as a teacher and really needed it for that month.

ORIGINAL: mrstjohnson

He is definitely stuck on the whole out of warranty issue.  Any ideas to get that out of his head. 

 
You might try logic.  Sometimes that works, especially when you are trying to convince a man.  []
 
I like your "sort of" plan of paying the other car off in a  year.  Then, you will own one car with no payment, saving yourself $500 a month over what you are paying now.
 
Okay, let's say the car has 100,000 miles when the engine craps out.  First, this isn't likely, but let's go with it since that seems to be DH's concern.  What is it going to cost you to put a rebuilt engine in this car?  Probably around $1500.  That is THREE MONTHS worth of payments to cover a problem that is unlikely in the first place.  Yet, to avoid that very unlikely repair, DH thinks it makes more sense to make a car payment for say, 4 years????
 
Try that.  I don't know how old you guys are but I am under the impression that you aren't young kids for whom driving a nice expensive car is critical to your mental well-being???  []

Nope, definitely not the young...we are 33.  We are just starting a family and I think he is just trying to avoid unexpected expenses.  But your example might help me sway him.
 
 

ORIGINAL: mrstjohnson
Nope, definitely not the young...we are 33. 

 
Gawd, you're kids.  []

I agree with everyone else, that being without a car payment is very freeing. I think you ought to use Billy's logic, too, to convince your guy.

And what is it with SUVs? You don't NEED an SUV to live in suburbia! They guzzle gas. *I* need a truck or SUV because of where I live. My friends on the rez need SUVs because they live on unpaved roads (as I do). But you don't NEED an SUV to take kids to school, or go to WalMart.

I still drive that old 89 Toyota Camry most of the winter, though, because it still gets 30 mpg. It has front wheel drive, you don't need 4-wheel drive to drive in Alaska in the winter, either. I drive the truck if there is deep snow.

Anyway, go for the no car payment plan and put some money away! It's a great freedom to be able to do that!

LOL, you're not allowed to say you're NOT YOUNG at 33 UNLESS you have 2 kids or more...that's the official rule because kids age you prematurely.
 
I believe the official conversion is that each child adds 5 years onto your age, until age 13 upon which time you can add another 3 years per child to your "age"...so my two under 6 make me 41! []

[][] And after age 13, you can start adding about 5 years per kid per year ... and this doesn't necessarily stop even when they reach late 20s or early 30s.  Gawd.  I should have been dead long ago.

Joyce

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_dogs_mom

[][] And after age 13, you can start adding about 5 years per kid per year ... and this doesn't necessarily stop even when they reach late 20s or early 30s.  Gawd.  I should have been dead long ago.

Joyce

 
LMAO.  By my calculations, I am 104.

I agree with Billy.  We didn't have a car payment for years (eleven to be exact).  DH HAD to have a new car, so we plunked down the cash for a '03 PT Cruiser--brand new, all the bells and whistles. We have a couple of years left to pay on it.  The good news is, we got 0% APR.  The bad news?  The depreciation!

I bought my current vehicle when it was a year old and had it paid off in a year and a half. it is seven years old and has only 70,000 miles on it.  I will be keeping it awhile longer, thank you!

One thing to mention is to MAINTAIN your older vehicle.  I don't know how many nice cars we bought when one of DH's clients brought in a car s/he had not maintained and then had a big OOPS go wrong.  Rather than fix it, they would sell it to DH for a pittance.  We fixedthemt and drove them for years. One example is a 1980 Buick Skylark (this was in 1987).  The oil pump FELL OFF and the lady kept driving and seized up the engine. The lady didn't want to fix it and the tow co. offered 275.00 for it.  DH offered that much plus took care of the towing bill. We put out a couple of thousand dollars for the rebuild and essentially had a brand new car. We drove it until 1993 and still sold it for about 1000.00.  I figure we spent 200.00 a year to drive it.  It was cheap to drive, got good mileage, was cheap to insure and was a kick to drive (DH put double sway bars and alloy wheels on it for me.  YEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!)