Woo!

Just made the last payment on my car finance loan yesterday!

WOO!

That's an extra £126 a month for me

WOOOOOO!!!

(Can you tell I'm pleased?)

My car's been mine since I got it. (8+p
Congratulations on paying off the loan though, extra money is always a good thing.

Mark

+1

I only buy cars I can afford to buy in one chunk these days.

++;

Until I have a large expendable income I have no interest in getting a car on credit, especially in the current climate

Well the man needed a car.

Well done Fog.

I bought both my cars outright, 2nd hand but bought within my budget and didn't exactly come out with a reliant robin.

Well the megane was a pile of poop.... but the less said about that the better

How many people would buy a house for cash, rather than taking out a mortgage? I also avoid buying on credit if I can, but a reliable car is a perfectly sensible thing to buy provided you don't borrow beyond your means and make all the payments. It's not like borrowing just to get a holiday or a giant TV!

Congratulations on making the payments, it must be a relief

A house is an investment.

A car isn't.

A house is not really an investment unless you've bought a second one specifically for that purpose. For most people, a house is something you live in.

A car can be just as crucial as your home to the life you lead. Not driving seriously limits your employment and travel opportunities. If repaying £126 a month enables you to take a job you couldn't otherwise take, live a life you couldn't otherwise live, then that is an investment.

I borrowed £1000 to buy my first car. It changed my life around completely.

Nice one!

It's been five and a half years since I bought my nice shiny new car from the show room. Back then I didn't have a mortgage, wife or child, so I had the cash to splash. I doubt I'll ever have that kind of cash lying around again, so my next car will be second hand. Hopefully I'll get another five or six years out of my current car, it's got about 93k miles on the clock at the moment. It should easily do 150k miles.
The car I had before that (my first car) was my mum's old one. She gave it to me (with 90k miles on the clock) from my 21st birthday when she bought a new one. It lasted to 110k miles before it started to go wrong all the time. That's when I bought my current car.

I agree.

I paid £400 for my luxury motor, and four figures for insurance.

I didn't have to borrow anything to do it, but it has meant I've had steady and constant employment since then. I wouldn't be able to do my job without the car.

If it had a serious break down or I crashed it now, I would have to borrow money to get a new motor and insure it.

I would see it as an investment, because it would result in me earning more than the repayments on it would cost.

Congratulations Oli. If I were in your shoes I would be saving £100 a month for the next car!

I got a loan for my first car, when I got my first job. It cost less than a grand and I needed it to get to work each day.

Now, I wouldn't buy another car on credit, unless I had no alternative. I'll drop down the scale until I find something in my price bracket. But for the first job, there often isn't an alternative, unless your parents have set up a trust fund (Jessica's grandparents set up a savings account for her, she will get it when she is 18, she could buy a new (cheap) car, keep trying to tell her to buy something cheap and cheerful as her fist car, but she keeps on saying how scheiße her mother's Megane estate is - too small and too old (2001 model)... ).

My car is mine. Wish it wasnt, if I didnt live in the sticks and have a toddler I would get rid of the piece of crap.

I think the last payment on my car is in October and the decision has been made that I'll be keeping it for the next few years.

What a grand scheme. I did that some years ago. I set a target of the car I wanted, and how much I could save to get it.

Okay, it was secondhand, but the look on the salesman's face when I dropped £4k in notes on his desk was worth it.