What’s really weird about this thread (not your posts) is that the OP hasn’t actually made it clear that they can’t afford the payment. They just say it’s expensive, seem to be declining one relatively simple option that would make it WAY less expensive, and, when asked about declining this option, gave some vague answer about worrying that something would break in the car (has it been unreliable?) and about insurance being expensive (but, of course, another poster had already suggested shopping around for insurance quotes).
So my $0.02 is that, while the poster is concerned about $ being lit on fire, they are not necessarily unable to afford the waste.
You know that the OP post is extremely similar to what LH looked like 2 years ago. All about cars underwater that they wanted to know how to Lease a car to save money.
It usually ends up with a post 3 years later about how the car they leased is horribly over mileage and they are even more underwater.
Yeah, I totally remember those posts. People basically rolling over negative equity in a lease (again and again and again), just making things worse.
While there are a ton of similarities, this post feels a little diff. I almost get the impression that the OP is as freaked out w/ the process of owning a car as she is w/ anything financial. But who knows?
So yes I can afford the payment I’m a small business owner, but I’m trying to downsize right now. Yes you all are correct those transits are not an option at all for the area I live in Texas unless I want to die of heat exhaustion. I’m going to just pay off the negative equity sell my car and get in a cheaper vehicle and trade in whenever I feel I’m where I want to be financially. No I am not broke I can offord this payment however I’m aware it’s ridiculous. I do not want to refinance the Mercedes.
You would be correct on often freaked out when it comes to finances plus I have a lot going on currently, moving apartment, selling car, and moving my shop location. So yup I’m totally freaked right now
Have you started looking at vehicles that will be cheaper to lease or buy? If yes, care to share?
How soon do you think you will be able to get into a new car and no longer have the Benz? 3 months? How much interest would you have paid during that time frame?
Did you ever share this? (see below)
I am neither a financial analyst nor an accountant. If I were in your shoes, I would probably take some of the advice being offered.
Well, except for the whole, “I can actually afford this, and I don’t want to do the really simple things that would lower my overall cost, like refinancing or getting other quotes for insurance, some of which I’ve already researched”
My memory of the other ones were more that there was no easy solution except to just kind of suck it up and try to pay it off as best as you could, and sometimes the OP understood and sometimes they didn’t.
After 2020, most leases were earning equity hand over fist. No topics about how to ‘get rid of this turd’ (except for some outliers like INFINITI)
Now that the Used Car Money Rain has dried up the topics are looking like Pre 2020
Pre 2020, many topics were people who posted
Underwater on their car
Want a new Cheaper ‘Lease’ on their next car
Don’t understand how many miles they drive
Don’t want advice on anything else other than ‘Cheaper Lease’
How to flip Neg Equity into their next car.
This is approx the 3rd thread I’ve seen in the last 2 months, so I can see LH starting to return to it’s old topics. There are a couple of areas this thread hasn’t hit yet, but I’ll withhold them until they happen.
IDK who put these ideas in your head but they’re just stupid ideas TBH.
With any fairly priced new car and a typical new car loan APR of 3-4% it’s completely normal to be underwater for a period of time. But, with a low APR, most of the payment then starts going towards principal instead of interest and the balance starts going down. The loan balance goes down faster than the car depreciates and the negative equity becomes positive. All of that is normal.
What is not normal is your current situation of paying 16% APR on a car loan, paying $3,300+ per year on insurance and living in anxiety over repair bills.
Yes Insurance is Expensive and doesn’t sound right
Who is the Insurance carrier?
I ask because I/we are assuming you purchased your insurance separately but when you state that the car is costing you $1080 per month… $800 for car and $280 for insurance it makes it seem like one pmt to MB finance is for $1080.
Please tell us you didn’t let the stealer add the insurance to your deal or worse yet you didn’t show proof of insurance to MB finance and they automatically put their insurance on it and are charging you directly for it.
