Can you Buy a Car in a Year?

Buying a car is a big deal, no matter who you are. They are much more expensive than buying a book or a pair of jeans. Many people finance a car or lease a car instead of buying it with cash. It might seem impossible to be able to buy a car in cash if it costs $20,000 or more.

If you want to avoid this high purchase, you could buy a used car. These are usually cheaper and can be as low as a couple thousand dollars. You could buy a junk car for a few hundred dollars and fix it up.

You could save a lot of money buy buying a car without financing, even a new car. If you financed or leased an $80,000 car, you’d spend a lot more over time than if you paid for it up front. Unfortunately, most of us can’t pay that up front, or at all. Could you save enough money to buy a $18,000 car in a year?

It will depend on how much money you make first of all. If you make under $25,000 a year, you’ll probably have to wait a few more years. Even if you saved every penny you made and paid for nothing, after taxes, you might just barely make it. Not spending anything is pretty unreasonable.

If you live with your parents or somehow get out of paying for a place to live and food, you could save a lot more, but using the money you save to buy a brand new car probably wouldn’t be very respectful to those you are taking advantage of. You should probably put it towards an education or a home of your own.

Could you save $18,000 for a car? Let’s say you have your own apartment and you pay rent of about $700 a month. You have very few bills because you have no cell phone just a very cheap land line, no cable, no internet, and you barely run the water or turn the lights on. You live on Ramen noodles and never leave the house. You save wherever you can.

You make about $35,000 a year and you pay about 15% in taxes. Your after tax income is $29,750. Rent costs you about $8,400 a year. If you could pay for food, utilities, and anything else you need with $3,350 a year or about $280 a month, you could save $18,000 for a new car.

This is possible, but only if you are willing to live on scraps with no social life. You’d have to spend your free time trying to come up with more ways to save money. If you make a lot more than that, it would be a lot easier. For those of us who don’t have high salaries, just take a few more years, for your own sake.