[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by jayswin

I mean, there was a poster on here (Oillkiller, I think) who was the epitome of this. He posted about foreclosing on his house, then losing his vehicle. His immediate strategy was to finance a $15000 used vehicle, in his words, to rebuild his credit, so that he could finance a "real vehicle" a year from then.

This is the problem. Leasing/financing a new vehicle at 0-2% is not in itself a problem, and in fact usually the way to go, If your budget actually allows for the $20-$60k vehicle. Problem is too many people can afford a $3-6k vehicle, but walk into car dealerships with the "yeah, it just makes more sense to finance a new vehicle than buy an older one that will need repairs" attitude that they hear from commercials and people who can actually afford new vehicles.

Then they get caught in the shiny world of new vehicles in a showroom and the "If I can fit $250 in monthly budget, what's $350? Or I can just tack on two more years and I'm in the fully loaded SUV for the same payment".

Dealers cater to this mindset. Go in look at a vehicle and the first thing they'll ask you is how much a month do you want your payment to be. Insane.