re: Americans Struggle to Afford Car Payments

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People shouldn’t be driving around in 60k cars when they make $145k.

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With a mortgage payment of less than 25% of take home pay and no other revolving credit card debt you could easily afford a 60k car.

145k is probably what let’s say $9500 take home pay per month after 401k, taxes, etc.

Let’s say mortgage payment is less than 3k that leaves you with over $6000 a month again with no other debt. Why wouldn’t you be able to afford a 60k car?

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Car prices have been exponentially increasing for over a decade now.

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How do people afford all these $50million cars???

My wife and I pay $3,650 on two car notes a month. We probably mess up that average

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People shouldn’t be driving around in 60k cars when they make $145k.

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Blanket statements like these never make any sense because every person's financial situation is different.

You could have 1 family with 2 kids bringing in $145k with a $4k house note, $150k in student loans, $15k of c.c. debt and both kids are in private school for $12k/yr each. Yeah that family has no business getting a $60k car with big payment, they cant afford it. The only way they feel like they can "Afford" it is to probably push payments out for 72-84 months. Probably for a bad interest rate, which makes the car a really dumb purchase for them.

Then you could have another family of 4 bringing in the same $145k with a $2k house note, zero other debt, kids in public school...affording a $60k car isn't really difficult in that situation. They probably have the margin to cover that, even if they maybe have to adjust things in other places slightly and probably still pay it off in 36-60 months relatively easily.

There's also what kind of trade-in or cash you have to put down making things totally different from 1 buyer to next.

There's way too many variables to just assume "a person making xxx cant afford yyy vehicle"

When I first got out of college a long time ago I was making just $35k/yr to start and had student loan payments of $275/mo. I went out and bought a brand new Accord for $25k out the door within months of starting that job. While most people would say I couldnt afford it, I easily could afford it because my overhead was very little. Now was it a SMART financial decision, no, but I also had $6k to put down on that car which I did and my payment was $322/mo for 60 months at 0.9%. My rent was just $400/mo so even paying my student loan, paying rent and paying my car payment....I had enough leftover for a single guy to do what I wanted pretty much (Which was nothing lavish but I easily got by and even got some "nice" things over time).

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You are dumb paying 45 for a tacoma.

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Dont know if people understand how expensive even mid-size trucks are getting. New GMC Canyon in BASE trim with 4x4 and cloth seats is over $41k with zero options/packages.

The new Tacoma coming out next year is going to be well in excess of $50k in top trims with hybrid max powertrain.

I was licking my chops looking at all the dealerships fill up. Then these fricking commie assholes went on strike!

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Then you could have another family of 4 bringing in the same $145k with a $2k house note, zero other debt, kids in public school...affording a $60k car isn't really difficult in that situation. They probably have the margin to cover that, even if they maybe have to adjust things in other places slightly and probably still pay it off in 36-60 months relatively easily.

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This is a crazy scenario to purchase a $60k vehicle to me. It’s just a huge drain on building wealth even though they can “afford” it.

that will do it! I would sure hope you love them.

There are some people projecting massive numbers of repossessions per month over the next 12 months. Some 40 odd million people got used to not having to pay their monthly student loans and many are using credit cards right now to pay core expenses. They just can't afford the payments.

The dealerships and lending institutions are as culpable as the borrowers. The dealers should have a long term approach to repeat customers but instead have decided to skin the sheep instead of shear them. The lenders are now on the hook for losses when the vehicles they eventually repossess are worth far less than the loan they assumed risk for without adequate collateral.

And the car companies have also largely lost sight of the goal of selling affordable cars to working class people.