How bad did I mess up?

That’s good. Not surprising with the resale value of our trucks. That residual is about 65%

 

Yep. That’s helpful.

Bottom line is... I’ll do pretty much whatever I have to in order to keep this truck.

I’ve got two years to save so I can soften the buying blow.

Regulators.... MOUNT UP

 

Drink more beer

P.S. There hasn't been ONE MONTH that I have regretted my Tundra payment. I actually ENJOY making it. Why is that? Runs great, handles great, looks great, and I drive over crap with it. Makes for a good day.

 

I leased 19 TRD Sports with nav and stuff. MSRP was $48,xxx and paying $314 for 2 years. There was 2 reason I leased it. Payment was low enough and it’s my first full size truck so wanted to try it for 2 years to see how its gonna work out for our family. Like @COMiamiFan said, I made my decision based on this payment was good enough for me.

 

A good friend of mine buys, sells and leases cars frequently. He has the $$ to do and drive what he wants. He got a 2016 Tundra on a 2 year lease, barely drove it and kept it pristine. When he turned it in at the end of his contract, they wrote him a check for $6k because the truck had not depreciated as much as they anticipated.

Moral of the story - get rich so cool shit can happen to you too. (At my current savings rate, I should be wealthy in roughly 137 years. So I got that going for me.)

 

I do take care of my truck... so maybe I’ll have a shot at something like that!

I’m not gonna hold my breath though.

 

It's just money. But what makes this truck worth the extra $7,000+ compared to a a new truck that you do a normal purchase loan on?

 

I don’t have to start over on a $45k loan.

 

After my Hilux was destroyed (rip) I took the payout from insurance and the injury settlement and made a big down payment on my 2002 Tundra. So payments weren't bad at $230 a month and many months I did double payments and got it paid off in October 2005. I started saving for 'emergencies and next truck' as I drove that Tundra till last December. That's the plus of a truck like this. If you drive it for many years, you get that benefit of one less payment every month, in my case, for 12 years, and I think I got my money's worth out of it, driving it 17 years. Made the next truck purchase much easier as I came in with 40k, very close to the truck price (but dang if that sales tax alone was almost 5g on top). If I had leased that 2002, I would have had to continue payments for far longer if purchasing it after, or leasing something else and continuing to make payments. Maybe for someone who always wants the latest sporty car and they want new every two years with no money down, whatever, have at it. For me, it's picking something that holds up (Toyota truck) and driving the snot out of it. Pocket the savings from having no car payment for a decade or more, and save up some for the next truck. I don't see leasing as a good way to purchase if the goal is to own it. It's an endless cycle of payments.

 

That's the way to do it. Strategically, you need more life out of your vehicle than the payment term.

 

Think of what you can buy without a car payment. Realistically, every vehicle you are buying is going to be a used vehicle soon...

 

true. there is that sweet spot when you don't have any car payments and the car is still not old enough to have major parts breaking.
some people do like to have a new car every 3 years and not have to deal with repairs/maintenance. Lease works out for them.

 

I wouldn’t say lease just works out though. They actually are paying a premium to insure against maintenance and repair costs. I’ll bet those who do this strategy spend far more than the repairs they are avoiding