LogFAQs > #923673175

Firewood18 posted...

I lease a new car every 3 years. I don't want to be stuck with a new car that has out of date tech after a few years.

It works for me because I don't go over the mileage and it has the most up to date safety for my family.

I looked into leasing once, but yeah, looks like you lose the most money that way, but...you do avoid alot of hassle. It looked like (from my limited research) it is better to lease for a longer term (3 years for instance) and then trade in the car for a new lease early. There are typically penalties for doing so, but not if you do it to trade in for a new lease.

This should (along with putting down a decent down payment) drastically reduce your monthly payments, which ends up reducing the over all amount that you end up paying for the car.

As an example I looked at a 32k car, with a final price of 30k, and just $2000 down. Set for a 2 year least it was something like 500$ a month payments, but set for a 3 year leas it ended up being $340 or so.

Net total paid for using the car for 2 years...with a 2 year lease and $2k down was $14,000. That money is totally gone btw..not investedin anything etc.

Net total paid for the same car with a 3 year lease, that you trade in after 2 years was $10k (about)....significantly less. Best to make sure that is an option in advance though.

Leasing requires you to drive less then a certain amount of miles though, which shouldn't be a serious problem unless you drive a freakton. That being said....if you can swing purchasing the car (even new) you probably will end up spending way less over 6 years or so.

But that 30k car straight up, drive it 6 years, with less then 15k miles average, and you'll still be able to sell it for about half the price. So instead of 14 (or 10k), spent for just 2 years, you spend about the same amount total to drive it for 6...a much better deal (with fewer restrictions).

Whats more, if you actually buy the car used (but not heavily used), with say 30k miles on it.......like I did with my Toyata avalon, you can end up selling it after driving it for 5-6 years for fairly close to what you bought it for....spending as little as 2-4k total for the same period, with a car that looks and feels just as new.
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