Americans are bad with money.
Comment on Based on a true story
needanke@feddit.org 1 week ago
As a non-American it seems wild to me that you would take out a loan for a car.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 week ago
Cocopanda@futurology.today 1 week ago
Country is car centric. You can not live here without a car. It’s next to impossible. Especially for the handicapped. They can’t get anywhere easily without personal transportation. We suck at mass transit.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 week ago
Americans are also bad with money.
Cocopanda@futurology.today 1 week ago
Not all of us. I’m sitting on 60k+ in my checking. Plus I paid off every debt I had but my school loans. Those will never be paid off ahead of time. Fuck the GOP for not helping students. But hopefully I have 20% set aside for a home in the next year or two.
ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world 1 week ago
And if your handicap is the vision test you’re just stuck
ameancow@lemmy.world 1 week ago
We’re not given much choice.
You simply don’t exist as an American without a car and a phone and internet and an address with your name on it. Anything below that is considered fringe, poverty or societal reject. Good luck getting a job without a smartphone and your own car, don’t expect public transportation to be of any help, it doesn’t generally exist outside the larger cities and what there is of it, often sucks and takes hours out of your day. Our “public” internet is mostly coffee shops who make you buy something to sit there using their slow-ass wifi. If you fall on hard times, you have to apply for aid, which comes with stacks of provisions, like having an address and a phone, and this kind of aid is only available temporarily and if you accidentally make too much money they will cut you off.
If you’re savvy you can learn to use things like libraries and carpools and food banks and other resources for the needy. But it’s really, really hard to get out of poverty once you fall down. Most institutions and companies that provide services of any kind charge you more and more the less money you have. You need to have over a certain amount in your bank or you pay fees. You need to pay your bills on time or they charge you twice as much, you need to keep a credit history maintained even if you’re broke, because most employers include credit checks in their hiring process.
Most of the “middle class” you see here are suburban families working multiple jobs 6 days a week or more. Two people working often requires two cars, now your monthly transportation costs outpace your living expenses. Have kids or want to have kids? Good fucking luck figuring out childcare or daycare and paying for that too. It’s okay, smartphones and tablets will raise your kids. Keep the machine moving.
ameancow@lemmy.world 1 week ago
The so-called “wealth” you see in the American middle-class is mostly just debt.
Orangutanion@lemmy.world 1 week ago
The process of dying involves lots of debt too because of our corrupt funeral and burial industry
thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 1 week ago
how are you buying cars? Because I’m in Europe and they’re expensive here too.
bier@feddit.nl 1 week ago
You save up and get a second hand car you can afford. Why buy a new one, even a car with 30K miles or 50K KMs is a lot cheaper, while its still new enough to drive for a while without major repairs.
boonhet@lemm.ee 1 week ago
50k km is still “need a loan” territory for most people. The absolute newest car I’ve owned was 144k km, 3 years old, and still cost near 30k.
Plus when it’s like 2% + 6 months euribor for a lease you get to keep at the end, it starts looking hella more attractive.
Now the APR in the OP, that’s predatory af.
Orangutanion@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Thanks for clarifying this. I know the EU does a lot of things better but I was confused about how you’re paying €5k for a good vehicle lol
scoobford@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
Cars are expensive and necessary in areas without good public transit (read: basically everywhere except a couple of areas in specific cities). Most of us don’t have a year’s salary just sitting in the bank, especially when you’re young.
If you need a car to get to work, you’ll pay what you have to because the alternative is no job which means no home, no healthcare, and no food.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
We got rid or public transit because of racism so we are totally dependent on driving to go anywhere
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I have a three year loan at 1.9%. Why would I cough up an additional $20k now, when I could hang on to my cash and, at the very least, leave it in an account that earns twice that (and then some) in interest?
pseudo@jlai.lu 1 week ago
As a Europeans it seems wild to me that my peer would pay loan for cars. But they do. That’s crazy…
satans_methpipe@lemmy.world 1 week ago
“American” here. We are obsessed with financing depreciable assets.
We are also obsessed with appearances and status.
I’m sure you can see from this thread some of us cannot comprehend driving a $5000 car. They will whine and come up with tons of excuses for why that just cannot happen.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Reliability is a problem when car trouble can mean losing your job. $5000 doesn’t buy that much car anymore
ameancow@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I cannot comprehend owning a $5000 car.
That’s insane that some people have 5k to spend.
MECHAGODZILLA2@midwest.social 1 week ago
We don’t - hence the loan
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
I bought my 2008 Toyota Sienna for $4500. I talked him down from $4900.
It had:
- 230k miles (269k now)
- an engine replacement (2010 with 91k miles less than the chassis)
- worn out sliding door rear hinges ($140 apiece), bad enough to be grinding on the body under the 3rd row windows
- broken power steering rack (found that a few weeks later)
- balding tires
- rattle-can patch job (black paint on factory black paint, not a huge deal for me)
- blown out rear shocks
- more that I forgot about (noted down in my records)
I bought that van because 1) it was a really good price, and 2) I knew what most of its issues were before I bought it and was able to fix it up. Also, I have 5 kids, so the minivan was a necessity.
$5000 is basically the bare minimum for a family car these days.
Paddzr@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Where are you that cars are affordable to a point where this is an usual thing?
belastend@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Yeah, u buy a used one for like 2,000 - 3,000€. Or you lease. But taking on a loan with 16.9% interest would not cross my mind.
uuldika@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
it’s extremely rare to find such a cheap used car. my partner spent $8k on one that lasted a year. also, you might be surprised to learn that driving isn’t optional in most of the US - it’s literally impossible to live without a car. I live in a suburb. it’s several miles of dangerous roads to get to a grocery store. there is no nearby public transit. even large cities like LA were completely designed around cars. zoning and urban planning here completely screwed us.
yes, it sucks, yes I’m aware, yes I’d love to live in a walkable European city with commuter rail and cafes on the street corner, no I don’t have a choice.
belastend@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
I know about american circumstances, thats why i added that part in parentheses.
In the european countryside, car dependency is definitely on the same level as in America.
On the topic of prices: the first car my brother and i shared was a 2008 ford fusion. We bought in 2019 for 1.5k.
dan@upvote.au 1 week ago
But for there to be used cars, there needs to be new cars… How do the people that buy new cars pay for them?
Allero@lemmy.today 1 week ago
Those are older/richer people that saved enough money to buy new.
helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 1 week ago
You take that 10k you were going to drop on a crap used car, use that as down payment on a new car. Get a longer loan with lower interest and keep monthly payment lower. The larger the down payment, the lower the monthly will be, and now you have 10 years to set aside money for the next new car or “out of warranty” repairs.
There are still new cars that have a sticker less than 30k, after warranties and any desired upgrades, probably closer to 35k-40k for anything not a truck, EV, or sport car.
There’s also people who lease, they pay lots of money to rent a car for around 3 year, after that they trade in for a new car and the old car gets sold as used.
belastend@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Either company cars, leased cars or someone has the spare 30k for a car.
And of course people take out loans for cars too, but thats less common. And not really necessary in the cities.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
True. The entire car market from new to beater is gonna get fucked up by tariffs pretty soon
Cocopanda@futurology.today 1 week ago
I spent 55k and bought my midlife crisis sports car. Most expensive thing I have ever spent money on and I just finished paying it off after 6 years 718$ payments. Now to buy a home. One day.
endeavor@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
You can get solid suzukis for 1.5k that last forever. If you can find porn for your weird fetishes you should be able to find a single goddamn guide on how to buy a car used. Every single bit of info on how to buy, maintain and fix vehicles is online. For free. For everyone. If you can’t live without a car at least spend 20 minutes googling it before buying a money pit.
Bassman1805@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Nobody with financial sense is taking out a 16.9% loan on a car. 5% is pretty typical right now for people with a decent credit history.
Whether or not that’s reasonable, is certainly up for discussion.
photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Buy the car you can afford. If you can’t buy it outright or make a significant down payment (20-30%), don’t take out a loan, look for a cheaper option. Those interest rates are insane, I’m amazed how anyone would accept them.
Paddzr@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I ageree, but that’s his predatory loans work, there’s enough people out there who simply can’t afford not to have a car.
photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Sure. But if they can’t afford the loans they can’t afford the car, either. No one really needs a $40k new car, anyone could get by with a $2000 used beater.
needanke@feddit.org 1 week ago
You have the option of not buying one if you cant afford it.
spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
Not really, depending on where you are.
When I was barely above broke out of college, I had to buy a shit box just to be able to go to work, because the only job I could find in my field was >20 mi from where I lived and had no public transit options that wouldn’t add an hour of walking on top of how long the bus ride took. And that’s assuming clear weather, which we get for maaaaaybe half the year. I don’t know about you, but I’m not about walking for an hour in the blistering cold with spotty sidewalks in busy areas
So, while I could take the option of not buying a car, it would turn a <30 min commute into 2-3 hours one way on a good day. Buying a car was the only way not to lose >25 hours a week on work transportation alone.
needanke@feddit.org 1 week ago
I am explicitly talking about this in the context of me being non-american. And where I live the vast majority of people who can not afford a car (like young people) are not dependent on one. Even if you live in bumfuck nowhere you can get around by moped.
If you work full time you would usually be able to afford a (cheap) car. And if your still in uni the towns are generally big enough for you to not be car-dependant.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
No, you don’t. Go look at America on Google maps. Then take a good hard look at the transit schedules.
Paddzr@lemmy.world 1 week ago
2-5k is not something people have laying around now days.
If they do, they’re not the kind to buy them.
But I’m speaking from UK market, might be worse down here.