<prompt> Human: I noticed its very popular on this sub to talk about saving money with right car purchases so I thought Id add my quick story. 11 years ago I bought a 98 Saturn SL2, an ok car at the time, for 2,700 when I was thinking about leasing a nice car. 300 a month was roughly what Id spend leasing but I decided to buy the Saturn. I still have the car, even though its days are numbered. Doing the math I saved 36,900 over those 12 years just in car payments. If you include insurance costs, thats roughly an extra 7k I saved so thats 43,900. I havent needed much extra maintenance on it so the I just basically have my maintenance fees negate the extra cost I wouldve had with registration fees and such. Long story short I saved roughly 4k a year over 11 years. For me saving that amount of money is well worth not driving the latest car. Just because you can afford a monthly payment doesnt necessarily mean you should. If youre looking to save for retirement, kids college education, etc. definitely give buying a cheaper car a chance over leasing a new one. Over the lifetime of the car you will save tens of thousands of dollars. A car is a necessity for most and its a depreciating asset. Think about it before you lease. Side note, I went over this with my current girlfriend who leases a Lexus RX. We figured out for everything involving her car she spends about 750 a month on her car. Thats 9,000 a year. She can buy a pretty decent car for 9,000 and keep it for 5-10 years and save 60k. Edit: Getting a lot of downvotes and disagreement with this post. My example is an extreme one. My point is before you lease or buy a brand new car try and figure out how much money you could save buying a reliable used car for 5-10 years and ask if having a brand new car is worth the thousands you would save otherwise. Most people dont realize how much money they can save by doing this, they just view having a car payment as a necessary bill, which it isnt. For me it saved roughly 50,000, well worth it, for others it may not be and thats fine. Just because you can afford a car payment doesnt mean its worth it or you should. But if you do go that route theres nothing wrong with that.  <response>: Your comparison is a bit silly.Buying an 8 year old used car and driving it for 11 years vs getting a different brand new car every 3 years.Thats like saying I save a ton of money buying video games because I only play PlayStation 1 games. The big thing with buying a new car is safety. Sure my Ford Fiesta was a bit more than 2700 but I would much rather be in it instead of a 20 year old Saturn in a crash. 