228 | How to Buy a Car

Buying a car never starts with 0.9% APR.

If you're trying to be cost-conscious, then you only have two options...

1. Milk more out of your existing car
2. Lower your standards by make or model or year or feature

Option 1 works unless it's gone, dangerous, doesn't function, or...the squishier.."no longer drives contentment".

Option 2 is a delicate balancing act between purchase price and maintenance. New cars are expensive, old cars break down.

Of course, "financing" is absent here, because the cost doesn't change whether we pay it now or over 72 months.

Once we've vetted our options, we can only trust our judgment and jot down our "whys" to protect us from our future self that likes to forget the uncertainty of the past.

• Why this make and not others?
• Why this model and not others?
• Why new or used?
• Why this level of features and not others?
• Why electric, hybrid or neither?
• Why now?

Then…

• Why cash or finance?

If the financing question comes first, we're not being cost-conscious.