Category: Financial

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The 5 Right Questions to Ask when Buying a Car

Yesterday I sold my baby. My car for the last 5 years was so precious to me. She helped us save $25,000, so I want to tell you all the lessons she taught us.

I have found that one of the largest financial mistakes many people make revolve around their car decisions. 

When I was 20, I was not very wise. I bought my “dream car” that ended up being a financial disaster for us. At the time, these were the questions that mattered most to me, and they are the questions most people rank highest: 

  1. Do I like the aesthetic of the car? 
  2. Can I afford the payments? 
  3. How old is it? 

THESE ARE THE WRONG QUESTIONS! 

It’s not that they’re irreverent questions, it’s that they are not the MOST relevant. 

After 10 years of no car payments (no waisted money on interest), minimal repair bills and THOUSANDS of dollars being reallocated to other parts of our budget, I want to share with you the RIGHT questions to ask when buying a car: 

What are the maintenance reviews?

  • You can scour the internet for all the mad people. They complain about everything. Before purchasing a vehicle, we read all the horror stories and look for common themes. Many vehicles start needing major repairs around a certain mileage point. Maybe it’s a transmission at 50,000, or an engine at 70,000. There are almost always patterns. Look for a car that people love to rave about, verses complain about. 
  • You can literally google “Cheapest cars to maintain” and read about the annual maintenance of vehicles. Those lists were how we made a decision on my husband’s car. It was consistently on every rating list of cheap to maintain, and it’s proven to be true. 

How much life does this vehicle have?

  • Years on a vehicle are not very relevant. You want miles. You can have a one year old car that someone drove back and forth across the country or a ten year old car that was a grocery-getter. Read the reviews online about which mileage point the vehicle is typically at when people have to drop major cash on repairing it. Some vehicles you want to ditch before they even approach 100k. 
  • Keep in mind, it’s not as important how many miles it has right now. The right question is “how many more miles until I have to sink a lot of money into repairs?” Both the cars we bought in college were SUPER low in mileage, and we thought that was good. Wrong. That was EXPENSIVE. Let someone else take the major depreciation hit. Buy a car that has tons of life left in it, but has taken a huge chunk of its depreciation already. 
  • My baby I just sold was a 2000 Toyota Avalon. We bought her in 2016 with 94,000 miles. There were abundant reviews showing us they very regularly get over 300,000 miles. So yes, I bought a 16 year old car. However, she was a teenager in mileage terms and had tons of life left to go. I was able to sell it for only $2,800 less than what I paid after 5 years. The average car payment in America is $500 right now. You do the math. I saved a ton.

What does the local mechanic say? 

  • I always talk to three different people who work on cars regularly to get their thoughts on a vehicle. They see the horror stories. They know what cars are in their shops constantly and which ones are a breeze to own. I am currently in the market for a minivan and narrowed it down to two based on everything I read online. I asked two local shops and both of them said “Oh definitely the option b. We are constantly having to work on option a. If you have an option b, we will hardly ever see you in here.”

Is the title clean?

  • Make sure you read the Carfax report. Sometimes something that looks like a great deal is because it’s been through a major repair. Maybe a flood. Maybe a car accident. You want to know the history of the vehicle to make sure you aren’t walking into a trap. 

How much does it actually cost?

  • Many people just look at the payment, but there are many other factors to consider. How much will it be annually to maintain? How much does it cost to ensure this vehicle? What is the gas mileage? Does it take standard or premium gas? How much do these type of tires cost? Many people see an affordable payment, but don’t realize all the surprises hidden in owning the vehicle.

Best of luck on your next car purchase! I hope our mistakes help you avoid making the same ones we did!

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Why is it so hard to ask for help?

I sat with my phone in hand, staring at the text message app with tears streaming down my face. My son was due in a couple of weeks, and all I needed to do was ask a friend to accompany me to a doctor’s appointment. I was scared to go alone, and I couldn’t type the words without bawling my eyes out.

Why on earth was it so hard to ask for help?

At the end of my pregnancy, things started getting complicated as he was still breech and the due date was creeping closer. My midwife was sending me to see an OB. My husband was out of town for work, and all my family members had work schedules they couldn’t adjust. I had to weigh out which fear was harder to swallow, going to this doctor’s appointment alone or asking for help.

In the end, I had three appointments where I had to ask for different friends to join me. Each time I cried through sending the request.

Since then, I’ve become acutely aware of how hard it is for me to ask for help.

It manifests in many ways. Piling all the tasks for work projects onto my list and having the hardest time asking other people to manage some of the weight.

Hearing the request of “let me know if you need anything,” and never letting anyone know when I need something.

Taking on more than I can handle, and then letting things slip through the cracks.

And so much more.

Two years ago, sitting with my phone in my hand while the tears fell, was a cross point of three fears. The fear of lack of control, the fear of rejection, and the fear of vulnerability.

I remember being most scared that they may say no. It’s as if I was attaching my self-worth to whether they saw my request as a priority in their lives. All three times I had to ask for a companion I started it with “do you have plans on ____.” That way if they were busy I could move on to the next option without having to hear no.

It became obvious to me that I like to be seen as strong and independent. I desperately wanted everything to be okay and for me to be able to rock these appointments solo like it was all no big deal. In asking, I had to admit to them that I was very scared. I had to admit I wasn’t okay. I had to admit I needed a support system to get through this experience.

The other fear was rooted in a lack of control. I had researched all the birth plan options. All the best providers and locations. All the Plan B’s. All of the “if this, then this” scenarios. But I didn’t map this one out. Having a breech baby and changing literally every detail of the birth plan the last couple weeks of the pregnancy wasn’t in the playbook. I felt vulnerable. I felt unprepared. I felt highly uncomfortable. Needing help just added to the vulnerable state I was in.

Since this experience, I have tried practicing asking for help more often. It’s still really hard for me, but at least now I don’t cry through the asks. Here are a few of the things I have learned:

  • Don’t be the friend that says “If you need anything let me know.” Most people don’t even know what they need and if they do, it’s so far out of their comfort zone to communicate it. It will be so hard for them to ask you to help with something, that they will probably stay silent. Just show up. Just do something.
  • The more you practice asking for help, the easier it becomes to recognize the old habits that aren’t serving you. Now when the overwhelm starts to hit, I have a much stronger radar for “I probably need to invite someone into this process to help me carry this load.”
  • Asking for help is a sign of strength. I believe one of the reasons it’s so challenging is it makes us feel weak to ask for help. In reality, it takes great courage.
  • Most people really like to help, they just don’t know how. Letting them know how you could use some help will empower them to feel wanted and needed. Being direct about our needs can actually be helpful to our friends and family.

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