<prompt> Human: Lease ends next Christmas and we are paying 350 a month for it. We are wanting to buy used to save money but dont know if its a good idea to get out of this one first or wait it out. Does buying it out mean we are financing and just changing the monthly lease payment to a loan payment?  <response>: Take a look at the cars residual value from your lease paperwork. Its usually a percentage of the agreed-upon sales price. If the car was 20k, and the residual value was 54, then the vehicles assumed value at lease-end would be 10,800. If you elect to buy the car after lease-end, this is the amount you would pay.Then go take a look at the used car market for your vehicle, and filter search results for similar age, mileage, features, etc. If your search yields vehicles that are lower in price than the residual value of your car, turn the car in after the lease, and go buy a similar car on the used market. If you find that the used market for your car commands higher prices than your residual value, it makes sense for you to buy out the car after the lease.For brands like HondaToyota where used car values tend to be high, a lot of the time it makes sense to buy out the vehicle at the end of the lease. 