My wife has had the same Nissan Versa for 10 years. It was a cheap car ($13,000) brand new and although I hated the idea of a brand new car, it’s served us well. The transmission has always been iffy and lately it has started slipping. These Nissans don’t tend to make it to 100,000 miles, her car is at 70,000. We have a baby now and a few trips out of state coming up. I don’t think the car is worth fixing when the transmission is going out and I definitely want my wife and baby to have a reliable ride. We were in the middle of getting our money out of Acorns and switching to Vanguard when the transmission started slipping and the check engine light is back on. My wife and I have both agreed that’s it’s time to make a move.
The question here is should we pay cash instead of financing? We’re looking at low mileage, small SUVs, budget is $21,000. We have the money to cut them a check and walk, we have plenty in savings/investments that we wouldn’t have to touch and we wouldn’t be ruined if something else were to pop up. My thought is that it’s better to avoid having the car payments/paying interest. We would just have to make sure we buckle down to replace this cash in our accounts as it was destined to go into some new investment accounts.
original posted by DMAM2PM to r/personalfinance on Wed, 28 Feb 2024 16:00:21 GMT.