When do you not have a car payment?

When you make your living selling cars, you could be a trillionaire if you had a dollar for each time a customer told you "my car's paid off and I don't want a car payment." That brings to mind the question; When is there ever a time when you don't have a car payment? If you buy a vehicle and finance it five or six years, by the time you pay it off, you usually will have mileage approaching 80k or more. This is of course the time when your maintenance costs climb considerably, even if you don't experience any mechanical issues with the vehicle. Let's break that down. If you are coming up on your 90k servicing, that would include transmission, which even if you avoid the dealer and go to Jiffy Lube will cost you about $300.00 and that doesn't include the oil change and other factors that will cost another $200.00. So, $500.00 in maintenance. Since your vehicle is older, it will use more fuel so you can factor in another $500.00 annually in additional fuel and other fluids. You will almost certainly have to exchange tires or replace a cracked windsheld, or fix the heater or air conditioning, or something...So, that's another $500.00 for the year. Even if nothing major goes wrong (if you are over 100k then the timing belt could fail and now we are in the thousands), that's at least $1,500.00 in maintenance costs. Over 12 months, that means you have a $125.00 per month payment on your vehicle whether you think of it that way or not. Now, $125.00 doesn't sound like an overwhelming payment, but if you factor in the stress of worrying about your vehicle having major mechanical issues, the question is then raised is it worth another $150.00 or $200.00 a month for that peace of mind of having a new vehicle so that those concerns are taken care of (of course, if you are financing that older vehicle this is a no brainer)?

That additional $225.00 per month breaks down to $7.40 per day. That's the cost of a large Starbucks coffee and a roll. So, what it comes down is you are going to have a payment either way. The question is do you want your older, failing vehicle and a Starbucks drink or do you want a fresh, new, exciting, reliable automobile?