<prompt> Human: A 10 year old Honda is KBBing for 8500. A 5 year old Prius is 20k.So if youre going to buy used because thats the frugal sensible thing to do, what the hell? A 10k loan is still going to run you 250-300 a month.How does the budget conscious person deal with this, aside from just chalking it up to increased cost and paying it out?Assistant: I ran into the same problem when I was looking for a replacement for my failing 1998 Saturn over the last couple of weeks. It was tough to believe that a car with 40-60k miles on it would be only a few grand less than this years model. Used car prices were so high that I ended up buying a new car - something I thought Id never do.If you are looking to be frugal though, I think you either need to watch craigslist for a deal or be willing to live without a car.Human: It was tough to believe that a car with 40-60k miles on it would be only a few grand less than this years model.The used car market is pretty damn strong and has been for the past 1 year. I actually saw my car go up about 1.5k from 2009 to 2010. Assistant: So this is another point.Is it an investment at this point? Some used cars are holding their value like wo. Could one buy a car and flip it to make a profit in this market???  <response>: The chances of used car values going up anymore is quite low. Theyll stay pretty strong, but I doubt you can make a profit. The huge spike in used car sales prices was this recession, obviously, but with the economy going slowly getting better, I dont see used car prices going higher. 