Only Human

Laura’s Story

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So, long story short...

While Laura was working 45 minutes out of town at a waitress job

Laura made the mistake of

buying a car with no down payment while still in school

My Advice to You is

wait until you have a steady income to commit to unnecessary bills.

Here's the whole story

When I was 22 and in between my third and fourth years of university, made the worst financial mistake of my life. I took a summer waitressing job halfway between Vancouver and Whistler. I live in Vancouver, and there are no buses that go that way, so I needed a car to get there. First off, who buys a car to make it possible to get to a waitressing job? Lesson number one: If the car costs more than you could possibly make in the duration of the job you took it for, don't buy it.

But I did it, I bought a car. I had a budget of $10,000 but fell in love with a Toyota Echo which, at the time, was going for $14,000 so I just spent the extra $4000. Lesson number two: don't be an emotional buyer. Set your emotions aside when making major purchases and examine things logically. It's okay to buy things you like, but only buy what you can afford.

I had no down payment saved up, so I just financed the entire purchase price. The dealer was running a special of no interest for a year, with interest at over 8% when it kicked in a year later. I signed up for that, figuring I could switch to a different loan company after the free year was up at a better rate. Lesson number three: read the fine print. Turns out I couldn't switch later, I was locked in. And also lesson number four: Save up for a down payment first. My $14,000 car has cost me over $19,000 in loan payments alone.

And of course, then I went back to school and had to quit my job, but I was stuck with the car payments while I had no steady income. Lesson number five: I would have graduated with several thousand dollars less in debt if I had waited until after graduation to purchase a car.