It is hard to tell exactly whether new/used should be considered.
One has to put together a few things, like personal budgets to caclulate available free cash flows, and that allows one to figure out what to spend, as well as putting a value on personal preferences.
Both new and used cars are essentially expenses, with cash flows out, either in payments, or in increased repair costs.
Both new and used cars have their advantages/disadvantages.
Sly dragon needs to do some thinking about what he needs/wants, in addition to some concrete steps.
First step is gathering data.
Get a credit report and therefor a true reading of his current credit rating, which I would bet is a little better than he might think, as long as there isn't anything recent.
Second step is doing a cash flow budget to see what can be reasonably afforded. This is the hard part.
--do a rough estimate of how much you will be driving.
--call an insurance company, and give them your information, along with a driving history, and a few sample vehicles. depending on whether you borrow for the purchase, the lender will require more insurance, but the company can get you a range of prices.
--How long do you want to own the car? This makes a HUGE difference in the new/used decision. the longer you want to own it, the more a new car makes sense.
Personally I would lean towards getting a new car, but that might not be the best thing for our young father here. Buying a new car in the next 6 months or so will afford a once in a lifetime opportunity to get a great deal on a new car, and that should not be overlooked.
Anyways, lunch hour is up.
Another idea..
Try to find a GM car from a citizen who recently passed away… There are lots of Oldsmobile’s or Buicks with low low miles on them in prestigious neighborhoods for sale…The spoiled grandkids don’t want to drive an Olds 98…
I purchased two such Yank-Tanks in show room condition over the past decade…
Obviously if you can get a loan I think you should, but I'm guessing you either can't or don't want to.
I probably wouldn't buy a 1K dollar car, if I had 3500.00 I'd use every penny I could, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to set aside 250.00 in addition to the 250.00 for taxes.
As I recall you work at HEB right, they have their own credit union, do you belong to it? If you do I'd probably go to them first.
Get 2K more and you can buy my car ;-)
Re peat post...I seem to be flooded...
?Re peat post...I seem to be flooded...
i was selling cars till everything went to . at a big dealer you wont get approved but i would try drive time or jd buy ryder to see what they can do
pm if you need any thing i may be able to help. do you know your credit score it may not be as bad as you thank
ford also has a great first time buyer program it's good on focues and rangers haveing a child i recamend the focus
Hmmm lots of good advice for lots of different situations. But for your situation, Sly, I think Cosmic Cowboy has the best solution. I guess I'm just stingy with my cash and I never drop all my cash in one place. I don't even put it toward down payments. I'm always more comfortable with a little breathing space. It would really suck to sink all your cash into a car, while trying to repair your credit, and have something catastrophic occur, lose your car, screw up your credit more and have no cash. Talk about one step forward, 2 steps back! Good luck to you and your daughter
I don't know my my credit number and I did try a loan from my bank but was told no because of my pass.
I'll keep reading and thinking but can not really post till later, I'm at work and typing on my phones on screen kb sucks
if you are buying your credit score go to myfico.com. It is run by the fico company which is the company that supplies your credit score to the "big 3" (experian, equifax, and transunion). This is the only place where you can get your true FICO score. Even if you go to the website of one of the big three, they are trying to push a new credit score calculation of their own. Unfortunately, this number will be pretty much useless since over 92% of banks use the FICO score.
P.S. if you go with firstmark they use equifax exclusively so you can check just that one and save yourself money. I would recommend pulling all three though, that way you can check for accuracy. Before you do that, do a google search for "myfico coupon codes" and you can usually find a coupon code that will take 10-20% off of the price for pulling your reports.
What bank and how long ago?
I really think you should use this opportunity to find out what's really going on with your credit because you'll eventually want to buy a house for that little girl and then you'll really need to have good credit because it's a lot harder to buy a house all in cash than it is to buy a car all in cash.
As mentioned, find out what your FICO credit score is, most places have a free trial and even if they don't it won't cost you very much.
You can also get your credit reports (not credit score) for free once a year:
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp
Just remember that the places with the free trial are not your true credit score unless it is from myfico.com - read the fine print on those. I signed up for a scorewatch type thing with them and I got a 30 day free trial (if I remember correctly), you are able to cancel it before the period is up, but it only provides equifax if I remember correctly. You don't have to sign up for such a thing if you just want to do a one time purchase of your credit reports/scores (something like $50 for all three unless you use a coupon code). Also, pm5k is correct. If you are ONLY looking to check the accuracy of the reports and don't care to find out your score then you can get your free annual credit report. This may be a good place to start.
Just remember, MyFico is one of those places with a free trial...
Great reading comprehension! I am glad the part where I said I got a free trial from myfico didn't escape you. The only reason why I clarified it is because you said "places" when if you want your true FICO you should have said "place." The others are a decent general guide, but not very useful when trying to place where you are in the credit pecking order (it would be infuriating to me to get my score from one of those places where it tells me I have a 713, then go apply for a loan and get approved for a crappy rate because my CS is actually 671). It would be like having a yardstick when you need to measure in meters.
That's really splitting hairs since I specifically said FICO, not credit score or FAKO...
It totally did escape me, in fact I still don't see it.
Refer above to where I said I got a 30 day trial with myfico.
I realize you said FICO, I am just assuming that someone who has not worked on their credit before probably doesn't know that there is a difference, especially since most of those "places" say that they will give you your "credit score" not your "FICO" or "FAKO." That assumption may be incorrect and the OP may know all about the differences between the two, but I do know that I did not, and most people that I talk to also do not. Thus the clarification. I don't want someone to get started working on improving their credit by going to one of those "places," and think they are making progress, only to find out that they aren't. Some may get frustrated, give up, and think the whole credit score business is a conspiracy (yes I have heard this too).
Well Scorewatch is from MyFICO so I assumed you meant what you said which was "Scorewatch type" not actually Scorewatch.
You said it only provided Equifax which doesn't make sense since Scorewatch is from MyFICO and they provide your FICO score...
Ok, I see where you may have been confused, I just couldn't remember the name of the product and I should have said "a score watching type thing." I guess my subconcious is smarter than my concious mind since I wrote the correct name for it. My fault.
As far as the equifax thing, the contracts that FICO holds with the three credit bureaus are slightly different than one another. Each of the "big 3" has contracted a slightly different version of the FICO equation for their purposes. So your equifax FICO is different than your Transunion FICO. Some places use only one credit report exclusively and so this may make a difference (as noted firstmark uses equifax, and security service uses transunion for example). This can have a great effect since (for a long time until recently) my transunion FICO was about 35-45 pts below my equifax and has only recently begun to be more in line with one another (still about a 9 pt difference). If each of the 3 credit bureaus used the same equation, then there would be no need for 3 credit bureaus (I personally feel that there should be no need for 3, but apparently the market believes otherwise).
Here's some advice don't buy American cars. Buy either a Honda or a Toyota. With proper care that car will last you 20 years. Maybe more.
I hear some older Volvos are good as well, and can be had cheap...
Did you buy a ing car yet or what?
All kinds of bad advice going on here.
For starters the FICO score you pay for is different than the FICO score they pull at a dealership and most banks. Its an auto induced score so if you have ty auto history the score will be worse.
Things don't typically just fall off after 7 years. You can however take steps to have certain items removed with the proper do entation. Debts get sold and each time a debt is sold it seems like a new debt. Especially if they change account numbers when the debt changes hands. (I've been preaching credit prepping before a purchase but few listen)
Credit Unions are a good start but I would spend at least 60-90 days trying to get things removed from your bureaus before applying for loans. If you go out and apply everywhere and shotgun your credit you're ed. Take it slow at first because you already know you have credit issues.
Finding a vehicle isn't the problem financing one is.
If you want help with your credit report and how to clean it up I can help. PM me for details if you want help.
For all we know he has 3k in credit issues. At that point just use your 3,500 to fix your credit and make a small downpayment with whats left over.
or pay cash and take the long road to fixing your credit if its that bad.
Be careful because a lot of the free trials have switched to 7 day periods, then they charge you a monthly fee, so you have to get your report, then quickly cancel the subscription. This happened to me. My "free credit report" ended up costing 15 bucks.
Not quite so true anymore.
American car quality has started to close the gap with the Japanese.
Astonishingly enough, the Koreans have actually caught up in the quality arena too.
I would not have accepted a free Korean car 6 years ago, but today would have no qualms whatsoever about buying a KIA model.
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