No words needed !

[GR]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-are-getting-into-debt-just-to-get-by-2014-06-18

The heading says it all.

[Worsted Skeins]

From the article:  "[The] average automotive loan term [reached] 66 months for the first time."

Yikes!!!

[GR]

Reminds me of "Buying things you don't need through a job you don't like to impress neighbors you don't care about".

[Self-employed-swami]

None of that shit they mention, are actual needs, just wants.

[lisahi]

None of that shit they mention, are actual needs, just wants.

I thought the same thing. "Non-discretionary car financing"? WTF?

Does it occur to the author at all that a lot of discretionary spending is getting in the way of all this supposedly non-discretionary spending?

[randymarsh]

Ordinary life in America now simply requires more debt rather than less to live.

I feel their definition of ordinary is very different than mine.

As the cost of purchasing a new vehicle continues to rise, consumers clearly are stretching the loan term to help lower monthly payments, keeping them at a manageable level

Couldn't you just, ya know, not buy a brand new 27K car?

[Erica/NWEdible]

I had a guy go off on me a bit a few months ago because we installed a solar array and wrote about it. The cost of the system was about $28,000 with a 6 year payback period and mad incentives. It will likely cover all our electricity needs. Anyway, the guy started harassing me because no one in America can afford $28,000 of solar panels and I'm an elitist asshole blah blah and stuff. But solar can be financed and often is, at pretty low rates. So I started wondering, you know, how much do these non-elitist, non-solar-having, non-asshole Americans finance on their cars and never think twice about it? So I looked it up and - sure enough -  the average cost of a car loan in the US is just about $28,000 dollars. Head shaker.

[randymarsh]

So I started wondering, you know, how much do these non-elitist, non-solar-having, non-asshole Americans finance on their cars and never think twice about it? So I looked it up and - sure enough -  the average cost of a car loan in the US is just about $28,000 dollars. Head shaker.

Average student loan debt is about 28K too, but the media acts like everyone owes 100K+ and makes 25K. That debt (which has low minimums) is supposedly crushing, but plenty of recent grads are driving around in brand new cars. Hmmm...