How Much Car Can You Really Afford (By Income!)

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk about how much car can you afford by income. How Andrew Can Help You: Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Go to joindeleteme.com/pfp20 for 20% off! Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Go to Acorns.com/pfp and start automating your investments and get a $5 bonus today! Relevant Episodes: How Much Should You Spend on a Car? (My Answer May Surprise You!) 11 Car Buying Mistakes you Need to Avoid! (Don't Make These Mistakes!) Should I Sell My Car At A Loss?! - Money Q&A Should You Pay Cash or Finance A Car? (This May Surprise You!) Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

  Longtime listeners know, one of the best ways to build wealth is to increase your income. And one way to do that is by starting a side hustle. And that's one reason why I absolutely love Whatnot. Now, my son and I, we love collecting sports cards. And we've used Whatnot to buy and sell cards. It's been a really fun way to enjoy something we love together. Now, Whatnot is a live shopping platform where people sell everything from sports cards to clothing, electronics, and collectibles. And what's really cool about it is you can turn something you're passionate about into a business. And you could do it right from your phone. You don't even need a storefront or a website. So whether you're looking to make some extra money or find great deals on your next shopping trip, check out Whatnot.

• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  Search Whatnot, that's W H A T N O T, in the App Store. Download and start selling right away. When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI website builder.

• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

  I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer or developer needed. And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch. Their AI can help with SEO, website copy, email marketing, and more. Plus, your domain, website, email, and marketing can all live in one account, with plans starting at just $3 every single month. Hostinger builds your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hostinger.com/pfp and use code PFP for 10% off now. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, how much car can you afford by income?

• 2:23Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be diving into how much car you can afford by income. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And if you're getting value out of the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now today, we're going to be diving into how much

• 3:05Andrew Giancola?

  car you can afford by income. And when we dive into this episode, I am really excited to go through this, because we are actually going to provide you with a free resource in this episode as well. So we have a car buying spreadsheet that you can download for free. If you go to mastermoney.co/resources, that is going to take you through all of these numbers that I'm going to be talking about today. And what we're going to do is talk about how to figure out how much car you can afford by your income to ensure that you do not stretch yourself. There is too many people in this country. There is way too many people right now that have a super high car payment. In fact, the average

• 3:42Andrew Giancola?

  monthly car payment is $734 and the average used monthly car payment is $525. Now, based on the average income in the US right now, that is way too high for most people. And so we're going to show you how to figure out if you can actually afford that vehicle today. Now, the first thing I want to dive into though, is before we go into the question of can you afford a vehicle and you finance it and how to finance a car and all those different things, I first want to say this, the number one thing that you should consider, if you are buying a car, is paying cash for that vehicle. Cash is king when it comes to buying cars. There's a bunch of different reasons why. Number one is there's no interest

• 4:25Andrew Giancola?

  Payments, meaning you're not paying more for that vehicle in the long run. So there's no interest payments. And so that is a really powerful thing, especially in a high interest rate environment like right now. I know people who have seven, eight, nine percent interest rates on their vehicles. And there are other predatory places who sell used cars to people who are charging 10, 15, and 20% interest rates on vehicles. If that is you, if you're going into high interest debt on a car, then try to wait longer until interest rates come down. The argument against utilizing cash is if you are in an environment where there's 1% to 2% interest rates, then you're probably in a much better situation to just finance that vehicle if you want to. But when it comes to depreciating assets, for the most part, I always want you to pay cash for them if you can. Now, not everybody can afford to pay cash.

• 5:10Andrew Giancola?

  I'm realistic here. I know most of you will not pay cash for cars. But if you can, and if you're very serious about financial independence, or you want to retire really early, try to find a used vehicle that you could pay cash for. Now, we have done social media videos in the past showing, hey, you can find a used Honda Accord, you can find a Toyota Corolla, a reliable vehicle that has less than 100,000 miles on it for less than $10,000 cash. And so it is an option for those people who really want to pursue financial independence, and you want to achieve financial independence that much quicker. The second reason is you have no monthly payments when you pay cash. So obviously, you can take those extra monthly payments, and you can put them towards your investments, or if you want to go on vacation more, or if you want to do more things with your family, you can utilize those dollars towards things that you value.

• 5:55Andrew Giancola?

  So if you don't need the flashy whip, if you don't need to ghost ride the whip down the street and show off to everybody else, then you can go ahead and pay cash for a vehicle. Or if you are making good money, then it might be in your best interest to pay cash. Now, I'm not saying take your emergency fund to pay cash. I'm saying you are setting cash aside every single month for this specific purpose. Three, though, is that you avoid going into debt for a depreciating asset. I absolutely hate depreciating assets, and the last thing I really want you to do is go into debt for a depreciating asset. Four is it also can help you lower your insurance costs. So your monthly maintenance costs can be lowered if you pay cash because lenders usually Really require you to have higher levels of insurance.

• 6:38Andrew Giancola?

  And then lastly, you have peace of mind because you have a fully paid off car. So for those of you out there who finance a car and once you pay off that car, drive that car for a longer period of time. We're going to talk more about that here in this episode, but drive it for longer if you can. The more years you have no car payments, the more likely you are to build a tremendous amount of wealth. And removing this wealth killer from your life can be so incredibly powerful. This is why we set up these rules that I'm going to be talking about here in a second. And then we're going to go into how much you can afford by income. But first, let's get into my car buying rules.

• 7:11Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So if you want to buy a car without wrecking your finances, I'm going to talk through our car buying rules. Now I have discussed a couple of different car buying rules in the past, where we have actually talked through, hey, well, if you're willing to work for a longer period of time, you can spend 20% of one year gross income and you can go and buy a car that way. But if you want to become financially independent, you want to try to target something like 10% of your income in one year. But what I did is I started to develop this over time to different scenarios. And I started to look at, well, how do I personally go out and buy cars? I just bought a new vehicle over the course of last year. We had our third baby and so we were outgrowing the vehicle that we were in. So I bought a car and I went and really developed these parameters around exactly how I wanted to manage this situation. And so what I did is I came up with brand new rules for car buying

• 7:56Andrew Giancola?

  that I think is going to help a lot more people because what I wanted to do was make this easy for you to plug and play, which is why we developed this calculator as well for free. But I wanted to make this easy to just plug and play so that you understood, hey, how much am I spending based on my income? So if you want to buy a car without wrecking your finances, first I'm going to talk through this rule. So the rule is 24, 12, 10. I want you to remember those four numbers, 24, 24, 12, 10.

• 8:26Andrew Giancola?

  So what does the 20 stand for? The 20 stands for 20% down payment. Now, a lot of people are going to gripe at this. They're gonna say, why would I put 20% down on a car if I'm already financing it? Why don't I just front all that money and put as little as possible down? Here's why. Because when you go out and buy a car, typically, especially a new car, those cars are going to depreciate 20 to 30% within the first year. And so because of this, if you go out and you drive a brand new car off the lot and you are so happy, you got that brand new car smell, you're driving it down the street. A month goes by, that brand new car smell is slowly wearing off, but you still absolutely love your car.

• 9:09Andrew Giancola?

  But you're sitting at a red light and you start scrolling on your phone. Once you do that, all of a sudden, the light turns green and you start driving and you're not paying attention, you're still scrolling on your phone from the red light. Most of you know who you are who do this. And all of a sudden, traffic stops because there's traffic up ahead, but you're still scrolling on your phone and you slam into the back of somebody else and you totaled your car. If you go and total your car in that situation where you have taken a massive depreciation hit, you are going to be underwater on your car and you're going to be paying out of pocket to pay off the balance of that car. So if you don't put 20% down, you have a major situation. Now, I will talk about gap insurance in a second because some people will say, hey, why don't I just get gap insurance during that timeframe? We'll talk about that in a second.

• 9:53Andrew Giancola?

  So 20% down is what I want you to do so that you're not upside down on your loan and it can reduce the cost of your loan as well. This also means that you put skin in the game on this vehicle. So if you want to go out and buy a car, make sure you are saving in your high-yield savings account, a little bit of money so that you can put 20% down. And we'll talk about those numbers as we look at different incomes. Next is the number four. The number four is so that you don't stretch out your loan for five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years over the course of the life of this car. I don't want you to have car payments for the rest of your life. And so because of this, we want to make sure that you are reducing the amount of months that you have on your

• 10:35Andrew Giancola?

  Car payment. A lot of people will stretch it out six to seven years so that they reduce the amount they have to pay every single month. I want you to have four years or less. And typically, if you want to optimize this, three years or less is even better. But four years or less on your car payments. Try to minimize the amount of years that you have car payments. So that when the car is paid off, you have those additional years to take this extra money and put it towards your investments or your wealth building or whatever else you are prioritizing at that point in time. Okay? So 20% down, four years or less. Now we get to 12. 12 means 12% of your gross income on total car costs. What does that mean? This breaks down into two different areas.

• 11:21Andrew Giancola?

  7% or less, I want you to be spending on your car payments. Meaning that when you have car payments come up, you should be spending 7% or less of your gross income on the car payment every single year. So if you make $100,000 per year, let's do some easy math. You can spend seven grand per year on car payments. And then 5% or less will cover everything else. So insurance, gas and maintenance. All three of those things. Now, why did we change this from seven? Because typically what we've talked about is just 7% or less on car payments to 12% of your overall costs on cars. The reason why we did this was because the way to get around that and still spend way more on your car was to buy a luxury vehicle.

• 12:02Andrew Giancola?

  And luxury vehicles have really, really, really high maintenance costs. Meaning that you can go and get an oil change in a Mercedes. I'll tell you this right now from experience because my wife had a Mercedes and we got rid of that thing. And it was the best thing I ever did. But you could have a Mercedes and you could spend $2,000 to $3,000 per year on one oil change. It is absolutely insane. And the maintenance costs are so incredibly high on luxury vehicles that it could absolutely destroy your car budget because you're spending too much on the maintenance. So you've got to make sure that you are keeping it 12% or less of your costs should be spent on maintenance. Or less is the key here. I want you to spend less if you can. Especially if you're in that mode of

• 12:45Andrew Giancola?

  Building wealth and you're trying to get your retirement accounts maxed out and you're trying to get to that point in time where you can even just get started investing, you need to spend the or less, okay? Because I don't want you to spend way too much on a depreciating asset and you will never get ahead financially if you spend even more than that. So 12% or less is the key here. And then lastly is the 10. The 10 stands for your goal every time you buy a car is to try to drive this thing for 10 years or longer if you can. Now, I know situations change every decade. I know a lot of factors could come into play in terms of maybe you have more kids or your lifestyle changes or you get married and all these different things are going to happen. But your goal is to drive that car for 10 years or longer. I have driven every single vehicle that I

• 13:28Andrew Giancola?

  have ever owned for 10 years or longer and it has served me very well because I go years and years without car payments. The longer you drive that vehicle, if you only have a four-year max of car payments, that means you have six years where you have no car payments. This is going to allow you to save for the next down payment. This is going to allow you to put those extra dollars towards wealth building. And in fact, for some of you, if your income keeps rising, this may allow you to pay cash for the next vehicle as well. And so there's a lot of flexibility you have in play when you drive cars longer. The longer you drive vehicles, the less you are paying over time. Now guess what else you're not missing out on? Because the big factor here is that if you start to drive cars for a shorter period of time, maybe you trade them in every five years, well,

• 14:09Andrew Giancola?

  you are recycling that payment every five years. And what's going to happen here is you're going to lose out on that opportunity cost as well, which is a million dollar opportunity cost, meaning the dollars that you could be spending towards investments, if you compound that same amount, if you take that monthly payment and you compound it over that timeframe, it is over a million dollars if you're spending, say, 500 bucks a month on a car payment. So this is a really, really big deal. Staying within this, these parameters is a million dollar decision. And so you got to make sure that you are thinking through these numbers before you go through this process. Now, in that spreadsheet that we have linked up for you down below, it is going to give you these numbers based on your income. But what I'm going to do is I am going to go through some

• 14:51Andrew Giancola?

  of these based on your income. But first, let's discuss gap insurance. Now, if you don't know what Is it is an insurance that covers the difference between what you owe on a car loan and what the car is worth if it is totaled or stolen. Okay. So let's say, for example, that you buy a $30,000 car with $0 down and finance the full amount. So after a year, that car is going to be worth $24,000, but you still are going to owe $27,000. Now, if the car is totaled, insurance is only going to cover that $24,000 because that's what the car is worth, leaving you with that $3,000 gap and gap insurance. What it does is it covers that $3,000 gap, so you don't have to put that 20% down. Now, here is the scenario. When should you use gap insurance?

• 15:36Andrew Giancola?

  When should you put 20% down? If you are getting a really low interest rate, maybe you're getting a 0% interest rate or a 1% to 2% interest rate. I just saw, I think, recently that Tesla had like 1% or 2% interest rate on vehicles. If you're getting that super, super low interest rate, then it may be in your best interest to just go ahead and not put the 20% down and get gap insurance instead. Because if you put six grand down on a new vehicle, for example, you could be losing out on 8% to 10% that it could be making in the market. That is a logical scenario. But there are not a ton of other scenarios that I really consider this. Another one, though, is if you're going to put 20% down and wipe out your emergency fund, like if that's the decision you've decided you're going to make, I wouldn't do that either. I would rather have my emergency fund in place.

• 16:17Andrew Giancola?

  And so then I would probably be more likely to utilize gap insurance than I would to put my emergency fund in place. The problem with gap insurance is it's going to increase that 12% much more. So it's going to be hard to fit into these parameters when you get into 12% or less of your income spent on car costs. It's going to increase your monthly payment and it's going to increase your insurance. So you still have to fit within the parameters, but you've just got to make sure that you think through that a little bit more. Now, here's when putting 20% down is the better choice. If you want to avoid the higher monthly payments and it doesn't fit into the 24, 12, 10 rule. If you are buying a car with a strong resale value, then maybe you don't want to do that. Like sometimes people will buy used cars or maybe you buy something like a classic Chevelle

• 17:01Andrew Giancola?

  or you buy a classic truck that has really high resale value. To keep the car for a really long time, that may be a reason not to have gap insurance. But also, if you don't want to pay for gap insurance, gap insurance is actually kind of expensive. So gap insurance can cost anywhere from $300 to $600 upfront. You have to pay an upfront premium. And then it's about $20 to $40 per month after that. And so you do the math over time and you're still spending a decent amount on this gap insurance, specifically in the first year. So what is the best approach for this? If you have a really, really, really low interest rate, I'm talking that's teetering on that 0%, maybe you want to consider gap insurance. But outside of that, I would put the 20% down and stick to the 20% because that is the highest likelihood that you are going to be protecting yourself.

• 17:45Andrew Giancola?

  So for most people, you can consider gap insurance. Those are the reasons why I would consider it, but run the numbers on this. You can always double check to see what you should be doing and then kind of go from there. All right, so now what we are going to do is dive into how much car you can afford by income.

• 18:02Andrew Giancola?

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• 18:47Andrew Giancola?

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• 19:30Andrew Giancola?

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• 20:10Andrew Giancola?

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• 20:54Andrew Giancola?

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• 22:07Andrew Giancola?

  All right, so we are going to go over a $40,000 salary. We're going to go over a $75,000 salary. We're going to go over $100,000, $150,000, and $200,000 in this episode. So first, let's go through and think about a $40,000 salary. So if you make $40,000 per year, let's do the math on this. If you have a 20% down payment, the range of the car price that you are going to be able to buy is $12,000 to $16,000. So this means you're going to be going out and you're going to be buying a used vehicle. And this is completely okay. Imagine this for a second. You make $40,000 per year. What the majority of people do is they actually spend an entire year's salary on buying a brand-new car.

• 22:48Andrew Giancola?

  Brand-new cars cost anywhere from $25,000 to all the way up to $100,000 now. And so this is going to be something where most of them are in that 30 to 40 range when you're getting into some of the budget-friendly cars. And so we want to make sure that we are being responsible about this. So finding a used car that is a couple of years' use, that is a reliable brand, is going to be really, really important for folks in the $40,000 range. So if you buy a $12,000 car, for example, the down payment is going to be $2,400. And if you buy a $16,000 car, your down payment is going to be $3,200. So that is going to be the range of what your down payment would be. Now, the four-year loan max means that if you buy a $16,000 car, you're going to be spending about $285 per month on your monthly payment.

• 23:33Andrew Giancola?

  But the $12,000 car is going to be about $215 per month on your monthly payment. I'm telling you what, a $215 monthly payment is so much better than all these people out there who are getting you $700, $800, $900 monthly payments, specifically if you're making $40,000 per year. Now, your goal should be... Be to increase your income, but you can find good reliable cars in this range. You just have to look a little bit harder. It's just going to take a little more work, but it is the responsible thing to do. Now let's look at 12% of your gross income spent on car expenses per year. So this means that if you make $40,000 per year, you can spend right around $4,800 on car expenses. This is about $400 per month. This means that this is your insurance. This is your gas.

• 24:16Andrew Giancola?

  This is your monthly car payment, all of those various things. And so really what you're looking at is you want to spend about $233 on average on your loan, because we are looking at 7% of this payment needs to be spent on your loan. And max for the other cost should be about $167 per month. Now, if you have to commute a lot for your job, this may have to go up a little bit and be tweaked specifically in this income range, because you only have so much money that you can work with in this income range. So $167 per month is kind of what your goal is. Now, you may be able to adjust your car payment. And really, when you're in this price range, the goal is to try to get that car payment down. And really, when you're in this price range, the goal is to find the cheapest, most reliable car that you can find that's also safe,

• 25:00Andrew Giancola?

  so that you can just get from point A to point B. Then as you start to increase your income, then you can start to upgrade your vehicles based on that. And then lastly, is to drive it for 10 years. So obviously, we are going to do that. So if you are looking and you're in this $40,000 range, one is buy a reliable used car in that $12,000 to $14,000 range is the sweet spot. Put at least 20% down so that you have that available and finance no more than four years. You're going to have this paid off over the course of four years or less, which is going to allow you to have extra cash available for the maintenance of your car down the line when you need it. Keep all of your car expenses under that $400 per month range and drive the car at least 10 years. And that's how you're going to follow this one. Now, let's look at a $75,000 salary,

• 25:44Andrew Giancola?

  because you're going to see you're getting a little more cushion when you have a $75,000 per year salary. $40,000 is going to be the hardest one to stick to this. But also at $40,000 per year, if you can, I would try to buy on the lower range of that car price. Now at $75,000. Per year. What we are going to do is we need that 20% down payment first. So how much would that 20% down payment be? Let's look at the car prices. If you make $75,000 per year, the car price range that you can afford is $22,000 to $32,000. You can buy a brand new Tesla for that range at the time of recording this. And so this is going to be something where you can get into the brand new vehicle, or maybe you're getting a used SUV.

• 26:25Andrew Giancola?

  So if you buy a $22,000 car, your down payment is $4,400 per month. If you're buying a $32,000 car, your down payment is $6,400 per month. So that is the price range that we are looking at when it comes to putting 20% down. Now, let's look at the loans for a second. Because if we put 20% down, then we are looking at a loan over the course of the next four years. We're going to look at four-year terms on these loans. So if you bought a $22,000 car, your loan would be $17,600. That means your payment is $375 per month. Whereas if you bought a $32,000 car, your payment would be $540 per month. And so the sweet spot is kind of right in the middle there. If you can get a slightly used vehicle at $25,000 car,

• 27:09Andrew Giancola?

  you've got $425 per month is what you'd be spending on that vehicle. Now, let's take a look at what your max car expenses need to be. So for someone who's making $75,000 per year, your max car expenses per year need to be $9,000. So this is your car payment, this is your insurance, this is your gas, and this is your maintenance. So things like oil changes, all those different things, or if you need to repair something. So to break that down, we're going to break it down every single time. 12%, what I like for you to target is 7% on car payments and 5% on everything else. So 7% on car payments is $5,250 per year, which means it's $437 per month. And then 5% on everything else means an additional $313 per month

• 27:51Andrew Giancola?

  for insurance, for gas, and for any other maintenance that you have. So this is where you can see that it becomes much more manageable as you get to this $75,000 range, where the maintenance is going to be the stuff that you really want to make sure that you're taking care of this vehicle. And so you can see, when you get to the $75,000 range, you have a little more breathing And a little more cushion when it comes to making sure that you are managing your finances correctly. When it comes to your vehicle and obviously driving it for 10 years is the big, big key. So here's kind of my recommendations. If you're in the $75,000 range, you can buy a reliable used car or in some cases you can also buy a new car. It just depends on the type of vehicle that you want.

• 28:31Andrew Giancola?

  For me specifically, what I always do is I always buy a car that is one to three years old. I find that is kind of the sweet spot with the best bang for your buck. Specifically, if you are trying to get the big depreciation hit of the first couple of years off of that vehicle, and you don't want to be paying that depreciation hit, which is what I don't want to be paying, then I usually will buy cars one to three years old. So the car I bought over the course of the last year was two years old and it already took the big depreciation hit. In fact, that car brand new was going to cost about 30% more than it cost used and it had less than 20,000 miles on it. So it was one where, hey, there's not the wear and tear on the vehicle yet and it's just slightly used. That's what I would look for when you start to get into the $75,000 salary range.

• 29:15Andrew Giancola?

  Now, the key here is to try to keep all of your expenses for these vehicles under $625 per month if you can. That's going to keep you in that 12% range. Now, if you need to raise this in any way, shape or form, you're going to have to reduce your expenses somewhere else. It's the only way to make sure that you are staying within the parameters of your budget. Otherwise, you're going to start to overspend and obviously interest rates are always, always, always needing to be below 6%. If your dealership or wherever else you're buying a car is saying, hey, the interest rates are above 6%, go to your local credit union and go talk to them. Usually they have lower rates on car loans and you may be able to get a much, much better rate. So that's $75,000 and next we're going to look at a $100,000 salary.

• 29:59Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So now we are looking at a $100,000 salary per year and let's look at what these numbers are. So if you make a hundred grand per year, you can spend 30 to 42,000 dollars on your car based on these rules. And so what we're going to look at here is first, what is the down payment looking like? Well, if you spend 30 Thousand dollars on a car, your down payment is going to be six grand. If you spend forty two thousand, your down payment is going to be eight thousand four hundred dollars. Now, when we're looking at the four-year loan max, we want to make sure that we are looking at how much this would cost over time. So if you have a four-year loan on a thirty thousand dollar car, obviously, the loan is going to be twenty four thousand dollars because you put twenty percent down. Twenty percent down is six thousand, that comes out to twenty four thousand dollars on the loan.

• 30:45Andrew Giancola?

  And if you're going to go to a forty two thousand dollar car, that means you are spending thirty three thousand six hundred dollars on the loan. So what does that payment look like every single month? Well, on a thirty thousand dollar car, that's about five hundred dollars per month. On a forty two thousand dollar car, that's about seven hundred dollars per month. So you can see about every five grand, it's an additional eighty dollars added on to that monthly payment. So what does this look like for someone making one hundred thousand dollars per year? So the mass car expenses for a hundred thousand dollars per year is twelve thousand dollars per year or a thousand dollars per month. So your car payment and your additional expenses can be about one thousand dollars per month. This is where it gets really, really manageable for a lot of people. Meaning that your max loan payment should be about seven thousand dollars per year

• 31:30Andrew Giancola?

  or five hundred and eighty-three dollars per month. And your max other costs should be about four hundred and seventeen dollars every single month or five thousand dollars per year. Now, these numbers can be tweaked. For example, if you want to get a nicer car, but you can keep the maintenance costs lower, then you can tweak that four hundred and seventeen down and increase that max loan up. But this means that five hundred and eighty-three dollars per month is the vehicle price that you can get based on making one hundred thousand dollars per year. So if I were you, I'd try to stay in the thirty to thirty-eight thousand dollars per year range. And I'd put obviously that twenty percent down and I would try to keep all my car expenses below that thousand. So I would try to keep them at eight hundred and thirty-three dollars per month if you can. And this is just going to make sure that you stay below that range.

• 32:15Andrew Giancola?

  And then you have some extra savings if you need to put it aside in order to save up for some maintenance costs over time. Because you're always going to have maintenance costs, especially with vehicles when you're driving them for a longer period of time. It's going to come up where you're going to need new tires, you're going to need new brake pads. And so you've got to put some of that. Savings aside in a high yield savings account so that you have that available when the time comes. Now, you can also utilize your emergency fund for that. That is absolutely true, but you're going to have to replenish that emergency fund down the line. So this is going to be something where you have a lot more cushion when you start to make a hundred thousand dollars per year and you have a lot more options when you start to buy cars. Now, at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year, your car price range is between forty five thousand and sixty thousand dollars is what

• 32:57Andrew Giancola?

  your purchase price is going to be. A forty five thousand dollar car is nine thousand dollars down when you put 20% down. A fifty thousand dollar car is obviously ten thousand dollars when you put 20% down and a sixty thousand dollar car is twelve thousand dollars down when you have that down payment. Now, what does this loan look like? Well, if you have a 6% interest rate over the course of four years, that means that a forty five thousand dollar car is going to cost you seven hundred and fifty dollars per month. A fifty thousand dollar car is going to cost you eight hundred and thirty dollars per month. A fifty five thousand dollar car is going to cost you nine hundred and fifteen dollars per month and a sixty thousand dollar car is going to cost you a thousand dollars per month even with that 20% down. Really, for most people, I think your rule needs to be that I really don't want you going over a thousand dollars per month

• 33:42Andrew Giancola?

  on a car payment. I think that's where you start to get yourself, I mean, if you can afford it, more power to you, but that's where you start to see a big, big difference in the way people are spending dollars. I think thousand dollar a month car payments are just absolutely crazy. I would always try to keep mine as low as I possibly could. Next is let's look at what your max car expenses for the year can be. That means you could spend eighteen thousand dollars per year or fifteen hundred dollars per month on car expenses. Now, if I were you and you make a high income, I would try to spend way less than that every single year because you can take those extra dollars and you can start to max out some of these retirement accounts. I want you maxing out retirement accounts when you start to get to this level. And so Roth IRAs need to be maxed out and if you make additional income, then it needs to be a backdoor. And then also, we need

• 34:24Andrew Giancola?

  to be looking at maxing out our 401ks as well. So if you also factor in another eighteen thousand dollars per year going towards transportation, this can get really, really costly really quickly. So we just want to make sure that we are looking at this and very aware of that. But what that means is that maxing this out. You can spend on your loan $10,500 per year or $875 per month and $7,500 per year or 625 on maintenance. Now, if you get a regular old car, you're probably not going to spend $625 per month on maintenance. Now, if you need two vehicles in your household, meaning that you and your spouse need two vehicles, then you may be doing that. But if it's only one vehicle, spending $625 per month on maintenance is not likely unless you're buying a luxury car.

• 35:07Andrew Giancola?

  So if you are in this range, look for vehicles in the $45,000 to $55,000 range or less and making sure that you keep all your car expenses less than $1,250 a month is going to be the way to make sure that you stay within the parameters and stay within your means. All right, the last one is a $200,000 salary, which we're obviously you have more flexibility, the more money you make. And so the car price range here is about $60,000 car. That means you put 12 grand down. At an $80,000 car, you could put 16,000 down. Again, you do not need to spend this much. You can spend less than this and still be AOK. So for the four-year loan max, that means at a $60,000 car, you're going to be spending $1,000 per month. At an $80,000 car, you're going to be spending

• 35:51Andrew Giancola?

  1330 a month, which I think is too high. And a $70,000 car is 1170 per month. And then at $200,000 per year, when you're looking at this, that means that your max car expenses for the year is going to be $24,000 or $2,000 every single month. So the max payment you can have is $1,167 if you're taking 7% of that and $833 per month is going to be going to maintenance. Now, this may make more sense if you need two vehicles. If you and your spouse each make 100 grand a year, you need two vehicles. That's where this would make more sense because that's what your total household income is. So this is what it looks like and how much car you can afford by income. If you go outside of these parameters, if you need to spend more on a car for any which reason, maybe you

• 36:34Andrew Giancola?

  need a work truck, for example, and you work in construction. If that is the case, you need to make sure that your vehicle is producing income for you. So someone in construction, they need it for their business to be able to make money, that makes sense. Or if you're in lawn care or something like that and you need it to make money, that makes sense. Or if you need a Sprinter van because you deliver packages, that will make sense. It will produce an income for you. But if it's something that you just drive from point A to point B and you are going outside of these parameters, it does not make a whole lot of sense in the grand scheme of things when you could be taking those extra dollars and putting them towards wealth building activities. And so this is something you really got to make sure that if you're going to spend more and outside of these rules, then you need to adjust something else. Your housing costs need to come down or your food costs need to come down or something

• 37:17Andrew Giancola?

  else big needs to come down because if you can control your housing, your food and your transportation, if you control those big three things, that can help your budget tremendously in the long run and help you take extra dollars and put them towards your financial freedom. And that's what we want for every single one of you. I want you to spend more on the things that you value and I want you to put more dollars towards your financial freedom so that you can break free from that job and you can get out of the rat race and you don't have to be doing this day in and day out. Instead, you can do what you want, when you want, with whom you want. And that's the ultimate goal for all of us. That is what true wealth is. Listen, thank you guys so much for being here on this episode. I hope this was helpful.

• 37:57Andrew Giancola?

  Again, go ahead and download that spreadsheet for free by going to mastermoney.co/resources and you can run the numbers based on your financial situation. And let me know if you have any questions on this. Again, thank you so much for being here and we will see you on the next episode.

• 38:25Speaker 02

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