If you’ve recently gotten your licence, be you a young adult, or older and finally taking the test it’s at last time to start looking for your first car. Your first car is an exciting new milestone, but there are many things you’ll want to consider before you buy. This article will help you navigate the new world of automotives.
Start Easy
Cars have a difficulty attached to driving them. Like the statistics on a video game, only not as easy to see. Manual or automatic is an obvious one but cars have all sorts of things that will make them easier or harder to drive.
It can be tempting to go with a car you think looks cool and prioritise that over everything else but even with a licence you’re still new to this whole driving thing. Learn to walk before you run.
The best way to determine if the car is good for you is to book a test drive, always book a test drive before you buy.
Set A Budget
This one will require a bit of homework. A budget doesn’t just mean picking an arbitrary limit on how much you’re willing to spend, like Christmas shopping. You need to get out a pen and paper (or a spreadsheet) and write everything down. Track your income, your expenses, your savings. Get it all written down and figure out exactly how much you can spend and how much you’re willing to spend.
Don’t bankrupt yourself on the initial purchase, you also need to factor in fuel costs and maintenance. Plug those into your budget first and see what they do to it. If they put you in the negative you need a cheaper car.
Loans?
The world of car loans is a whole different beast but it’s one you’re going to have to face eventually. As a first time car owner, and if you’re young you’re going to have a couple issues on this step.
One of the most important things when getting a loan is your credit score, a number which identifies your reliability on paper. If you’re young you probably don’t have one, that’s an issue.
With a low credit score you’re going to get hit with a massive premium or you may not even qualify at all. What you can do is get a cosigner on the loan, usually a parent. As long as they have a good credit score they can take the risk for you and bring down the premiums.
Buy Used
All of these previous points really lead to this conclusion. As a first time driver, jumping straight into a new car is going to be just way too expensive, we haven’t even mentioned insurance yet!
A solid used car is going to be your best option. Used doesn’t mean old and shabby, there’s plenty of nice and shiny used cars on the market. But what it does mean is cheaper to buy and cheaper to insure.