That is what I have done, I don’t like that debt either and some cunt at the bank getting 2/3rds of my housing expenses is only slightly better than a wanker of a landlord getting all of it.
Comment on Anon tries to understand credit scores
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks agoFor the vast majority of people the only debt they should ever get is a house.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The average person does not have to financial means to pay for a car or school without loans.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
A car is absolutely doable without financing l. It’s a poverty trap to finance a car. What you can’t do is have a brand new car.
phlegmy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Same with phones. Buy a second-hand flagship from a couple of years ago (eg pixel 8), and use a pre-paid plan.
It’s not just a few hundred dollars saved on the phone, it’s also a few hundred per year on less overpriced contracts.
Prepaid plans have to be more competitively priced because you can switch at will.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I buy all my phones off eBay from reputable resellers. There are plenty that make a living at refurbishing phones, rate each one on a scale, post pics of the phone you will receive. I pay around $120 for mine, $180 if it’s a bangin’ deal and I really want that unit.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
caredge.com/…/used-car-price-trends-for-2025
moneyzine.com/…/savings-statistics/
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… that’s as of 2022.
Its worse now, considerably.
But, even assuming 2022 savings levels… that’s half the population that would need their savings to multiply by a factor of ~x42.5, to be able to afford the average used car, without financing.
… You are wildly, incredibly out of touch.
Sure, yes, its technically possible, technically doable, in approximately the same way that it’s technically possible and doable that I could become a millionaire by the end of 2026.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The average cost of a car is wildly skewed by luxury models and the absurd prices of new cars. The market has gotten more expensive, so it is more difficult to find reliable cars in the sub 5k range, but under 10k is possible. It’s possible to save a few hundred bucks a month and get progressively better cars without financing them, because depreciation isn’t significant at the low end of the market.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
When I was car shopping at the end of 2024, I quickly realized the best bang for the buck was around $10-12k because at that price you could get a low-mid range vehicle that was around 6 years old with around 100k miles. Obviously some vehicles in that price range would be older with fewer miles, some would be newer with more miles, but that seemed to be about the price range where you’d get a vehicle which you could reasonably expect to be mechanically sound for at least another 2-3 years. Less than that and you got into vehicles that were far more worn either by age or by mileage, so you’d be trading upfront payment for additional maintenance costs.
$10k is a lot of money to save up. That’s about my entire emergency fund right now. That’s almost 3 years of socking away $300 a month, or 2 years at $500 a month. Simply put vehicle ownership is horrendously expensive especially for folks making close to minimum wage
n0respect@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m vacationing with my upper-middle class sibling. They rented a car for the week … for $970! for one week! It takes me months to save up that much money! And they do this every year!
The wealth gap is rapidly increasing.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
you can’t afford a car if you only saved up 10K over 3 years.
RamenJunkie@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
It used to be, butnthse days the average person can barely afford groceries without a loan.
BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
How to skip steps 2-4?
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Pay cash for a car that runs. You aren’t getting a loan without income in the first place.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
it’s fine to finance a car you can afford. it may even be benefincial. i can take aout a 20K loan at a near 0 apr, i can take that 20K and invest it and get a return on it. which is better than dumping it all at once into a depreciating asset.
the problem is that people fiance cars they can’t afford.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Having 20k plus the cash flow to pay a 20k loan is a totally different scenario than buying a car for cash. If you need that 20k to pay the 333/month, it’s stupid to trust the market isn’t going to go down, and simple savings would net you maybe $500.