The shift towards massive vehicles (SUVs) and trucks loaded to the tits with tech junk is to blame. Auto industry sold the idea to Americans that their fat ass needs a compensator instead of psychiatric help.
It's poor planing and over spending that is the issue. People who lease cars are on an endless cycle of never owning anything and always laying a premium.
Just actually buy a car you can actually afford.monthly payments on and drive the car into the ground. Every car in have owned has made it at least a decade and a 150k miles. Once you are done paying off take what the monthly payment would be and out it into two banks account split 20/80. Woth the 80% being towards a new car and the 20% being for repairs.
My wife’s Honda has over 300k and still runs fine and doesn’t use oil. We put $10k aside for an emergency down payment, but every month it keeps going we are a few hundred dollars wealthier.
I laugh at my buddies who constantly need to have new vehicle.
Too many see their car as a measure of their worth.
Funny thing is my wife bought herself a beat up 1980 squarebody pickup for hauling stuff around the farm and you cannot take it out anywhere without people stopping to comment it and she only paid 4k for it.. Hell, we have near weekly offers from strangers to buy it off of us at a premium. I want to emphasise it is not some pavement princess it has whiskey wrinkles from past owners and plenty of rusty bits.
I have a similar truck. It's great for hauling junk around. I've had it since college. It used to be my daily driver. Now I have a commuter car, but I use that for errands. The thing is a tank. I also get notes on it all the time. I paid $500 for it 10 years ago. People have offered me $10k. It's very tempting, but I love that truck.
I have a most similar vehicle, a battered 12 year old F150 that started life as a Menard's rental truck. The most notable feature about it is that it's a long-bed, single cab truck that isn't white. People who ride in it are either confused or enthralled with it's lack of whiz-bang features. There are no power windows, no power locks, no keyless entry, no color touchscreen infotainment center, no CD player, and no carpet. It's not driven every day because motorcycle, so it should hold up a long time.
that's what i'm hoping for with my 1st gen yaris, 100k and no signs of wear besides the 3 previous owners fucking up the clutch and synchronizer gears.
That's one of the big problem with unwalkable cities, yeah. In Amsterdam, if you're poor you don't have to buy a car. Bikes are way cheaper than a beater car.
In the US, we've decided to design nearly all cities and towns to make life impractical if you don't have a car. Just another way we fuck over poor people.
I see people who can't afford a car trying to make it using an e-bike or a cheap scooter. Where I live, scooters are allowed to get up to 32mph, and e-bikes are limited to 20mph. That can make for a long, rough commute in any place except urban settings (where you have a fighting chance at public transportation), 55+ communities where everyone drives golf carts, or resorts, where traffic is usually painfully slow to begin with.
My brother in law and sister in law. They have two brand new leases and a house they can't afford and have been borrowing money from my in laws to keep afloat.
Lots of people over spend this way. I had a friend who was making $700 a month payments on a used Mercedes suv as a new teacher.