“A libertarian is someone who thinks he shouldn’t have to buy his girlfriend a car seat.”

That’s the town where they can’t even keep the nutjobs from feeding the bears, right?  And the bears are terrorizing the town?

This is the perfect encapsulation of ‘libertarian thought’: Our whole motto is ‘free choice’ but the second it impedes my ability to dictate what you do, it’s gotta be stopped!

CP prices on every one of them.

Wow, that IS300 is overpriced and in poor condition. CP.

Full size trucks and SUVs make perfect sense in much of the country.

Nothing new there. Keeping up with the Jones’s has been a thing for hundreds of years, if not millennia. The whole have to look good and share it all on social media thing seems to have ratcheted it up to 11 though in many cases.

“Find a new car under the average.... Right now the only new cars significnatly under 20k are the base Kia Rio, base Hyundai Accent and base Nissan Versa.”

There is no chance in hell I would have spent 16k for a car when I made $25 an hour and there is no chance in hell I will ever take a 60 month loan on a car. It will be underwater for most of the loan term. You need to live life always looking for the fire exits. An underwater loan is nothing but serious trouble…

“Find a new car under the average.... Right now the only new cars significnatly under 20k are the base Kia Rio, base Hyundai Accent and base Nissan Versa.”

If you are making shitty money, buy a shitty car. It’s not fair, but it’s reality. I had some incredibly shitty cars when I was in my twenties. I got one in a trade for a TV. I got the TV because a room mate was short on rent one month. Whole cost for the car $300. It lasted a year and I sold it for $500 when it…

Jeez, it’s really stupid how people like to pretend it was ever. Easy. The article and chart show exactly one thing. Age.

NOBODY is holding these people hostage and making them sign car loan papers.

When my wife and i moved from NYC to LA we realized we needed a second car. We already had one becuase we have a place upstate; prior to that like many NYers we didn’t own a car.

Odd, because I bought a pretty solid two year old Volvo SUV on the used car market just a year ago, and didn’t pay even close to$40K.  I considered that a luxury purchase.  If money was tight, I would have gone far cheaper without any concerns.

Honestly - even if you don’t make shit money. People are way too tied up with cars being an extension of their personality. Just because you’ve reached a place where you have a decent salary doesn’t mean you need to ratchet your spending up to match. But that seems to be the status quo for my generation (young gen-X /…

And if you do buy a new car, you don’t need to buy the “average” new car if you make shit money. You can get a fine car for under $20K.  It’s not going to impress anyone, but it’ll run for a decade+.

Used cars are also, of course, more expensive now than they ever have been. But I still think you’re right. It’s still possible to buy a good, cheap, used car if you need a car.  At least in my local market.

Oh, it’s not by dollar amount, it’s measured by take-home pay. Well the reason is obvious, it’s that Gen Z and Millennials, and to a lesser extend Gen X, get paid absolute garbage compared to Boomers who pulled up the ladder behind them, but still need to buy cars.

Yes, and you are less likely to have an existing equity in a vehicle for trade in or even substanial savings for a down payment. Heck, you can’t save for the “next car” after paying off a car if you are a new workforce participant in need of transport.