My primary objection with a lot of lease offers is that they're teasers, especially the hyper-aggressive ones you mention, the ones on TV that have "five grand down" and "you'd better have a FICO score of 800, bitch" hidden in the fine print. Those basically exist to lure people in the door and encourage them to overbuy. I know it seems weird to be irked about that, since "encourage people to overbuy" is one of the bedrock principles of the American car market and has been since before my parents were born, but still.

But leases in general? Yeah, they're pretty okay. My brother and sister-in-law swear by them, because they're the sort of people who want to get a new car every three to five years anyway. So lease deals are phenomenal, because they're fine with having a monthly payment from now until infinity, and it's way lower than it would be if they were financing since they're basically only paying depreciation and sometimes not even that.

That's not me. I've bought two cars in my life and both lasted 10+ years. In part, this is because I've been poor. I'm not poor anymore, but being poor for something like fifteen years leaves its mark on a man and I'm crazy paranoid about assuming debt. When I finally landed a good job and entered the middle class, my family was all "oh, I guess you'll be buying a house and a nice car and going on expensive trips and &c" and I was like "you're all fucking crazy, I will continue living in my perfectly nice apartment and instead use the extra money to pay down debt and max out my 401k."

So yeah. When I pony up the dough for my next ride, we're talking 25% down payment and taking out a 36 instead of 60 month loan and paying that thing off in two years.

-Merc
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