For some background, I'm 18, graduated high school last year and have been working retail for about a year as well as doing an internship for the past 10 months in my chosen career field. I still live with my parents and pay my dad a small amount each month for rent and to use his car but I will need to get my own car within the next 6 months.
I just accepted a job offer in my field that pays anywhere from 10-15k more than what I'm currently making. I made some budgets with exaggerated expenses and I determined if I stay w/ my parents short term I could expect to take home 1-1.5k after all expenses each month or .5-1k if I move out. Im also planning on starting college in the next 1-3 years and would like to be able to pay for as much of it as possible out of pocket to avoid starting my career in debt. Also worth noting that experience is nearly just as important as an actual degree for the career I want so starting college as soon as possible won't necessarily guarantee me a high income position.
So the car: Right now I feel like I have the choice between either getting a cheap starter car for 5-8k and having it paid for very quickly or getting something in the 15-20k range (2016 Civic preferably) and start aggressively paying it off before I move out so I dont lose much to interest.
I know any significant debt this young can have some pretty big impacts but Im entertaining the expensive option because I don't want to worry about whether I'll have to spend time or money on significant maintainance and would like something reliable that doesn't have issues for at least the next 5-8 years though school. For minor points I do care enough about appearances that I'd feel more comfortable in the nicer car as well as I drive a lot for recreation and would prefer something more comfortable with modern features but financially that doesn't really matter as much.
Thanks for reading, any advice or reality check would be really appreciated, is a new car a big mistake or is there any sense to it?
UPDATE After reading all your comments, I think i'm going to opt for something cheaper and get it paid off right away. I figure I'll start building some savings and an E-fund and hold off on something newer for now, Maybe wait for more stability and re-asses my needs then. Thanks for the advice everyone!
Submitted June 03, 2018 at 02:10PM by PossiblyReality https://ift.tt/2JvjsTY
