No car.
My mom is a property manager, has been for quite a few years now, and literally runs the office she works at. Ben (her boss) is usually not in the office most of the time and so the majority of the work is left for my mom to do and on occasion when she isn’t busy running around town to different properties they manage, she gets stuck at the office; I guess being stuck at the office all week last week and Ben being out of town this week, she decided to leave work early today (technically yesterday) since it was dead. When she got home, we decided to go talk to some car sales people since we had the time and I had mentioned it to her the other day.
Our first stop was the Ford dealership since I have become really interested in the new Ford Focus. Not only is it small, like my Honda, but it sits higher off the ground compared to my current car and gets excellent gas mileage and are fairly decent in price with the lowest end model being around $13-14k. Of course, as soon as we got out of the car a car sales man came up and greeted us; he was nice..not one of those, I’m going to jump down your throat and be a pain in the ass until you buy a car type sales guy, but was actually decent. I told him that this would be my first time buying a car and that I needed something that would qualify for a First Time Buyers Program in hopes of saving some money/lowering payments, etc. He asked me a few questions like, if I had a job (check!), and if I was in school (check, check!)…things seemed to be okay as far as that went until he went inside to check on the requirements for the first time buyers program which the Focus does qualify for. He came back out and informed us that you have to make a MINIMUM of $1800/month BEFORE taxes…yeah that definitely won’t work for me, and so he said that since I don’t make that much a money I’d need a cosigner which my mom and I figured anyways since I have no credit at all.
He gave me his card and told me to give him a call should we decide anything in the future and that he would work with me to find something that would work within my budget, and make sure I didn’t get into a car that wasn’t suitable for me or that was going to cause problems financially; in that respect, I was glad he helped me because I’ve always been weary of car sales people because they always want to sell that car and some just don’t give two hoots what your situation maybe. Either way, I was bummed after that because I was really hoping they’d be able to tell me something good; I wasn’t denied anything but the cosigner thing is a big issue. My mom’s credit isn’t good enough (or so she thinks at least) for her to be a cosigner for me, my grand parents (at least my grand father) would most likely not cosign because it would affect their credit should anything happen with my payments and my grand father is a big pain in the butt when it comes to those things…I have no one else that I could possibly ask or even feel comfortable asking to cosign for me, so I’m kind of stuck finding another USED (used) car.
After the Ford dealership, we stopped by two other places to look at used cars but didn’t see anything good and our last stop was the Kia dealership. Now, I’ve driven a Kia before - I had one for a SHORT, SHORT period of time when my aunt and uncle bought my cousin a Kia Spectra for her sixteen birthday but because of her bad attitude and stuff, they took it from her and gave it to me because I had a baby sitting job in a town 20 minutes away and my car at the time was a HUGE POS. Even though, they agreed to give me the car and I could make payments on it (since they were at the time), they took it back and eventually traded it in to get my uncle a new truck, despite the short time I had it, it was a decent little car but I’ve heard not so great things about Kia and I would much rather get a Ford or something than a Kia but anyways… So a sales man helped me there and I told him the situation and he had me fill out a credit form so he could pull my credit etc. He told me that he would send over some things to the lender they use just so we could get an idea of what I would be offered should I decide to get a car through them. This kind of made me smile a bit, mainly, because I just want to know what I CAN afford and who will actually give me the time of day to get something started. He said he’d call me the next day.
When we left the Kia place, I was really upset…because I just wanted a new car, something that I would feel safe driving and something that would be worth putting my money into. I was frustrated (and still am) because I’m 22, I have no credit so they can’t really base anything off that and I don’t have a great job that brings in a decent income. I’m a full time student who works part time at Old Navy - how the hell am I suppose to GET STARTED when I can’t even afford to get started? I recently got a credit card through USAA so that I could start building a little bit of credit, but even so…if I can’t afford payments, how am I suppose to get a car? The most I’d be able to afford comfortably is probably $200/month and I don’t mind finding a more used car so long as it’s been checked over and over again. My Honda is a used car, and while it’s been a good car for me I’ve realized over time that we should have done more research on it before buying it, but it’s too late now. I just want to get started on my life…and be able to be a responsible adult aside from going to school, working and paying what bills I have - I want to be able to afford this and be able to feel accomplished and tell myself HEY I CAN DO THIS…but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon, and it upsets me so much.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I know the stressful feeling and it’s rough but give it some time, finding a cosigner is rough anyways but the income requirements are a huge part of it. I hope you can work something out..