A year ago I was 19 and signed a $41,000 truck for 72months with 15.35% apr paying $900 a month (loan required a limited warranty and GAP insurance alongside). I sold my soul 🫩. I was young and stupid made a big mistake. I am well aware you’re going to give me a lot of shit.
On the bright side I have learned a lot about building credit and my credit score has shot up from 640 to 713 in the past year. I’ve been building credit accounts, using low utilization, and I haven’t missed a single payment.
So now I thought it was finally time to look into refinancing my truck finally, alongside cancelling the warranty. I plan on keeping GAP, due to having minor negative equity from majority of the payments going into interest.
For the truck payments alone without the add ons, I am paying $750. I have 60 months left of the loan. While doing the math though, I found disappointing results. I have been using 9% with the new loan as a place holder, so I thought the savings would be astronomical especially canceling the warranty. After doing the math though, $37,262 – 9% – 60 months – GAP, I would be paying $770-$775ish.
Finding out that majority of the payments go into interest for the first few years was not very pleasant lol. Although I can now cancel the limited warranty, I technically would be paying more from the $750 a month. GAP doesn’t really add much to the payment.
So the question is this- Do I refinance for the current 60 months, do I refinance for 72 months, do I do nothing, or am I just a kid looking at this entirely wrong?
The major concern of mine is that the longest credit term I currently have is my truck. Losing my longest credit line is going to damage me a lot, so I only want to do this if necessary. I would love to open another credit line as well, but proceeding with this would mean I’d have to wait awhile.
Posted by xXxDarkW0lfxXx
4 Comments
Focusing on monthly payments is how many Americans stay poor.
Refinance if the APR is lower.
Maintain as high of a payment as you can (do not fixate on lower monthly payments).
Write out a (complete) budget. Allocate as much income towards the debt as realistic.
—
All financial planning starts with a budget.
Your budget is your map. Formulating a plan without a budget is like trying to plan a road trip without a map.
Start with your map.
This will help to determine a financial plan.
* https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/budgeting/
Do you really need that truck? Can you sell it? Let’s say you sell it for $30000. Then you only owe 7K. Buy a 10 year old Toyota for 10K. Then you’ll end up with 17K overall car debt vs 37K now.
So you agreed to pay $65000 for a $41000 truck?
Since you are adept at math now, let’s look at it.
[$41,000 financed | 72 months | 15.35% | $874/month](https://www.calculator.net/auto-loan-calculator.html?csaleprice=41%2C000&cmonthlypay=750&cloanterm=72&cinterestrate=15.35&cincentive=0&cdownpayment=0&ctradeinvalue=0&ctradeinowned=0&cstate=RI&csaletax=0&ctitlereg=0&printit=0&ctype=standard&x=Calculate#autoloanresult)
You’ve got 5 years left, so just shy of $16,000 in interest to go on this loan. You’ve paid around $4,500 in principle.
That leaves us with:
[$36,500 financed | 60 months | 9% | $758/month](https://www.calculator.net/auto-loan-calculator.html?csaleprice=41%2C000&cmonthlypay=750&cloanterm=72&cinterestrate=15.35&cincentive=0&cdownpayment=0&ctradeinvalue=0&ctradeinowned=0&cstate=RI&csaletax=0&ctitlereg=0&printit=0&ctype=standard&x=Calculate#autoloanresult)
During that 5 year term, you will pay just shy of $9,000 in interest.
So, do you want to save $7,000 during the next 5 years?
If so, refinance the loan.
I bet you work pretty hard to earn $7,000, might as well put it in your pocket versus a bank.