These Are The Most Expensive Car Payments You've Ever Had

Brand new and self specced $90k Porsche 718 Cayman S, financed $50k @ 3.9% 48 months with a credit union, $1125. Bought January 2024.Single, no kids. Overpaid and underworked.

How smart these decisions are really depend on your income level. I pay over $1,000 / month for my Palisade, but but that was because there was a great interest rate offer from Hyundai financing and $1,000 / month isn’t really enough to impact my budget one way or another.

Pretty much every new car I’ve bought for myself has had double the MSRP of my previous one. My last personal purchase was a 2018 Model 3 Long Range back when I was one of the first in my state to have one. It was $850/mo, all paid off now and no plans of re-selling. The key is to just not buy beyond your means.

$823 3 years, 0% on my Maverick XLT Lariat Hybrid. My retirement truck and I love it, payment be damned. You can’t go wrong with free money.

Up until 2016, I was able to keep my car payments under $350 per month and that includes a 2005 Legacy GT (purchased new) , a 2008 Legacy GT Spec.B (purchased CPO), and a 2014 IS350 F-Sport RWD (leased new). The auto loans were for 4 year terms with the lowest rates available at the time (0.9-2.9%, remember the good old days!). The IS lease was with about $3K down. Fortunately, I have the benefit of being taught how to be financially literate and also to be a skilled and educated car shopper.

When it finally came time to purchase a bigger, nicer car, I purchased a 2014 CPO x5 and the monthly payments were around $400. It wasn’t until my wife got a nice car allowance that we decided to splurge and commit to $750/month lease payments on a 2021 A7 PHEV but again with only $3K down at closing. Seeing that people are currently paying that much per month for $50K vehicles, I feel pretty good about the deal I got on an $80K luxury car (about 14% off of MSRP plus about $7K for the EV vehicle credit). And, fortunately, the other two cars in our fleet (2014 X5 and 2002 M5) are fully paid off so it is our only monthly payment.

When I was in my 20s and making bad decisions, I put a deposit down on the newly announced Lotus Elise - well before production (for the US model) began. Production delays were so long that I pulled my deposit and bought a house before the car I ordered arrived.

A couple years later, I needed to scratch that itch, so I found a used one - exact same spec as the one I ordered. Keep in mind, I was still dumb, and really could not afford a mortgage and large car payment; but I was used to living hand to mouth & ramen was still palatable, so I added a ~$600 car payment to my monthly outlay.

It was a dumb decision, but I still own & love that car - long since paid off.

2017 Camaro SS 1LE.

$594/mo. 60 months 4.1% APR