Author: Cheryl
•2:57 PM

I have something to confess. The cars that my husband and I drive are leased. I KNOW, I KNOW, leasing overall is not good. Its like renting your car. You never have an end and you are never without car payments. This is one of our many financial mistakes we made over the years. But just as we are fixing our credit cards, our lack of savings and our budgeting, we want to fix this to. We want to do this the best financial way possible.

Our lease is up in a year, and we will both need cars. Many days a week we work opposite hours and in opposite directions too. So going with only one car is impossible. We know we want to buy, and buy fuel efficient and practical. Drive them into the ground, as we will never lease again, but what will be right option for us then:

1.) Buy out our current lease, actually I should say I could buy out my lease. My husband hates his truck, so he would never buy it. Mine is fine, but I don’t know if this would even be right thing to do.

2.) Buy brand new ones. With all the dealers dying to sell cars, I can’t imagine they still won’t be dying to a year. There will be good deals and incentives if they can get you a new car.

3.) Buy certified used ones. Another thing neither of us have a problem with.

4.) Buy flat out used car from a place like CarSense.


The other issue is a down payment. With putting all of our extra money into savings and our credit card debt, there is no extra money for a down payment.

Do we try to get a car with no money down? Do we take a little money from the credit card snowball and put it away each check for a year for a down payment? Or do we just take some of our tax returns next year and use that for the down payment?

Of course the minute we would have a car payment and the credit cards are gone, I would then be working to pay off the cars as soon as possible.

A million questions I know. I’ve been doing as much research as I can. Any input you have would be appreciated.
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1 comments:

On March 19, 2009 at 7:37 PM , DogAteMyFinances said...

Actually, in this whack economy, leasing might have been smart for the first time ever. Your cars will be worth less at the end of the lease than they were supposed to be, with very few exceptions.