"The Dealership Wanted Me To Pay a $1,700 Car Note..." Woman Says She'd Rather Keep Her Paid Off Car

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Okay, quick story time because I fear I may be overreacting. So, I just left the dealership. I went specifically to a Ford dealership. I'm sitting in my paid off Ford Expedition 2018 to be exact.

[00:00:16]And and let me tell you what just happened. Take a wild guess about how much a brand new 2026 Ford Expedition Platinum Max with the ultimate package would cost for a lease.

[00:00:35]Okay, I'll let you guess. $1,700.

[00:00:39]71700.

[00:00:43]the same exact price that my four bedroomedroom threebath mortgage is minus a couple hundred.

[00:00:51]What are they thinking? I don't know.

[00:00:53]Maybe maybe it was because it was me going in there and I was like, you know what, me as a 35year-old female can walk into a dealership and just, you know, test drive a vehicle and ask for some lease numbers. Um, I don't know how hard can it be. Boys do it, right? So, I walk in there. First question, how much do you want your payment to be? Sir, Michael, I just want you to run some numbers ethically and tell me how much you can do it for.

[00:01:27]Okay. Um, so he said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. Uh, 48month lease, $1700."

[00:01:37]I laughed in the man's face. I said, "No, no, I don't know. Maybe they didn't think I play ball, but I worked in a dealership at 16 years old, so you're not you're not going to fool me once, fool me twice kind of thing. It's just an absolute no. For a Ford, no. Me and my 2018 that is paid off. We're just We're not going anywhere." $1,700.

[00:02:09]May you know what in this economy maybe that is the going rate.

[00:02:13]>> I don't think it has anything to do with the dealership trying to steal from you.

[00:02:17]One of the reasons why dealerships ask how much do you want to pay because that determines how much you need to put down in order to get into the payment range that you know you want to be in. And so when they ask that a lot of times they also they may bake in some warranties but you got to deny that once you finish signing up the paperwork and everything like that. But the first thing is if you got a paid off vehicle and you're not trying to impress nobody or you're not upgrading for work to where you can actually write it off as a business expense, then you should probably stay nine times out of 10 and what you have paid off. You don't need a new vehicle.

[00:02:55]You just need to get to and from. You know what I'm saying? A lot of people miss that. A lot of people are so focused on getting the newest thing or they trying to keep up with the Joneses that they allow for their payments to dictate their life. The second thing is she compared it to her mortgage. You can't compare it to your mortgage. The reason why you can't compare it to your mortgage is because a there's two reasons why you can't compare it to your mortgage. A um people are always trying to justify whatever it is that they're doing by what the payment is. And you can't do that because you have to look at the interest rates. You got to look at the length of you know how how long you financing it for. Even when it come to homes, I think that people make a grave mistake and saying that I am this is how much my mortgage is instead of saying this is what the purchase price is. You should try to limit the amount that you're paying in interest. And people again, they pay for the house two and three times over by focusing on the payment and what they think that they can afford instead of limiting how much money they're giving over to the bank.

[00:04:00]All right. The second thing is in that equation again is the details of the payment terms. You understand what I'm saying? So, if I got a 30-year mortgage, which also probably has insurance and property taxes, not including maintenance baked in, and then you could possibly refinance from it, that's completely different than a car that you're financing for four, five, six years or whatever you finance it for at X interest rate with how much you put down and paying it off a lot quicker and a lot sooner. So, you know, the justification isn't there. The problem in society today is not that it's a Ford because I think that the Expeditions are absolutely awesome. I myself have the new Navigator and I have the Black Label. Um, but that is, you know, the business card that I use to get to and from, going to different job sites, all of this different stuff. And then of course I use it for meetings and get people around and all of that other stuff. But it's not about the the type of car and whether it's a Lincoln or a Ford or Cadillac or GM or Infiniti, whatever it is that you want to think about. The question that you have to ask yourself is you have to ask yourself what do you need for the lifestyle that you're trying to live? Can you afford it and can you afford to pay for it in full? Some people don't even see that as a possibility because it's like I would never pay that. Well, because you probably don't make $2,3 million a year.

[00:05:22]Other people can't justify it as a tax write off. And then some people are just getting into impressive Joneses or because that's just what they're used to doing. Again, you have to break it down by what you do and what your lifestyle is and everybody's bracket, everybody's affordability, everybody's, you know, whatever is wrong. But for people to then be complaining about the fact that you can't live off of a hundred $150,000 a year, yet they walking around with $800 and thousand car payments, then I would say that that's a situation where you probably need to, you know, have a come to Jesus moment and check yourself.

[00:05:57]>> I don't know. I don't know, man.

[00:06:00]>> I've never understood why people buy a car and make car payments on it when they can barely afford it. Like I know it's one thing when you if you can pay it off all at once, but you do payments for either like credit or whatever. But I remember I was talking to this girl years ago and she was always complaining about how my bills are so high and I have to pay my car and I have to do this and I It's not that you're paying it to build up credit. When people have the cash, but they choose not to pay the entirety of it right then and there is because most of the time they say that they can justify it by making money on top of money and then letting that pay for whatever their, you know, their hobby or whatever the fun thing is that they is rather than giving all of that money away and not letting their money make money on top of money. If that makes any sense. even buy groceries. And I was like, "Why?" I just asked one. I was like, "Why did you buy like such an expensive car when you could have gotten like a four or $5,000 one?" And she was like, "I felt like I deserved a nice thing because I worked to save up for it." I was like, "Okay, fair, valid."

[00:07:00]Like you you can treat yourself, right?

[00:07:02]You live your life how you want. But I said, "Why would you do that if you if you struggle to afford it? Like I feel like you you're better off getting a car that you can pay off right away and then you save up and then once you're like more stable and you're like okay now I want the nice car because like it's not going to affect me that much then you get it. But like why do people do that?

[00:07:22]Like I know there's some people who like buy something expensive for the love of just flaunting it. But see, I've every time I think about people and how they buy cars, I always think about Jeff Bezos when he was already a billionaire or like almost there. He was driving a very old Toyota or a Honda and someone asked him, they're like, "You are worth so much money. Why do you still drive this old car?" He goes, "Because it works perfectly fine." And then I remember that. I was like, man, the guy with the bunch of money that he can burn and it it would never affect him, he could care less about a McLaren or whatever.

[00:08:01]>> And that's uh cap. All right, let me sell you Let me tell you something. They may not necessarily get that car, but they definitely going to be having a plane. You understand what I'm saying?

[00:08:11]The biggest misconception about people that have money is that all of them are a monolith or all of them is trying to hide their wealth or all of them just drive a Toyota. That's not true. That is a that is true for a certain portion of people that may not necessarily care about cars, but they care about another expensive hobby or they do this or they do that. Contrary to popular belief, you know, he pays for bushes to be at a certain level in order to make sure that his privacy is a certain way. When you go into some of these rooms, I will tell you that it's people that has had money and they get a lot of money and they splurge and they spend on the things that's meaningful to them and they will blow they will ball out. Sometimes it's cars, sometimes it's watches, sometimes is is lifestyle, sometimes it's vacation, sometimes it's women, sometimes is it's it's a lot of different things, right? But stop thinking that just because you can use Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, you know, as an example, that doesn't mean that that's average or that's normal amongst all people that have resources as money.

[00:09:12]It's a w they get a yacht. Jeff Bezos got a yacht that's literally a brain drain, but he has so much money to where it doesn't even matter. And he got a yacht for his yacht and then a helicopter pad on top of it. You go over to Monaco and F1 and you know they have a a race track and then people pull up with their Bugatti sitting on their boat just because they want to flaunt it.

[00:09:36]Don't believe that all people that have money are a monolith. I said, "But why are people who like struggle in basic society, why do they feel like they need a upto-date car?" Me, I got my little Camry, man. Me and my Camry, we like this. We've been through it all. And it's paid off. We I never have to worry about, oh, the first of the month is here. I got to pay for my car. No. Like, one day when I can just buy a car and pick a nice car that I want, yeah, I'll get it. But because at that point, I'll be able to. like it's not going to be a hassle. But now I cannot imagine having a car payment. Like people got to pay rent. Es if you got kids, you got to take care of your kids. Now granted, if you're just alone, single. Sure, if you right, it's in your means. Treat yourself. But like people that don't have it in their means, why do they put themselves in that financial burden?

[00:10:29]Never understood it. Like shoot, my little cousin, I remember his first car, he wanted a nice first car.

[00:10:37]and like he could afford it at the time, but then like the car didn't even work because he he was trying to like it was a project. I was like, "Bro, just get yourself a little beater, save up, and then you can work on that car on the side." But people in cars, man, like I feel like the internet has taken people's mindsets about cars to a whole another level. Like, >> he's he's he's right about that. Let me know what you guys think inside of the comments. Make sure y'all tap into the Patreon link is in the description. Um, I will link back to his profile inside of the description. Also, I love y'all.

[00:11:06]I appreciate y'all. I'm going holl at y'all later. Peace.