Can anyone speak to this and their experience with buying a previously-leased vehicle?

We usually do a Friday Grab Bag but we’re changing things up a bit this week. Here’s some interesting stuff from the world of credit and personal finance….

Since then we have purchased only used, from dealers, which come with a warranty. We paid cash for those and they’ve each have made it longer than we expected – one which we still have.

We’ve learned that it really does not make sense to buy new. Not with the glut of good cars available. People buying the new cars and then selling only a few years later are fabulous, stupid, but fabulous. They are eating the price depreciation of those first few years and giving us the bargains.

For most people, a car just needs to provide a reliable/safe means to get from one place to another. Do you get more value out of it because it’s new? Most likely not.

Anyhow, I could go on and on with this topic, but suffice it to say, that there is very little justification from a financial planning perspective to buy new cars.

On the ads issue – marketing gurus are paid a whole lot of money to figure out how to push our buttons. It’s not going to get any easier as we’re hit with more information on a daily basis. While we can do our best to avoid advertising messages, the decision and processing power has to ultimately lay with the consumer. We need to be able to maintain self-control over our money and make the decisions that are best for us.

Once over that first huddle, it’s easy to keep it going car after car.

I agree with your reasoning otherwise – buying a new car with a loan is a bad idea. Basically what you’re saying is “I can’t afford this car but I still want it.” Nobody should buy anything (except a house) on credit, in my opinion.

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