Reminds me of when a dude I knew was posting on Facebook how gas prices were too high and filling up his two new Cadillac Escalades was getting way too expensive because of Obamacare or something.
God damn we are a country full of idiots.
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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The fuck? That's about what I paid in monthly mortgage payments for my house.
I make well...very well...quite well into the six figures and a $1000+ car payment seems insane to me.
What the actual fuck.
And most of these assholes are leasing and pay penalties for over milage.
That's nearly half my mortgage in one of the highest COL counties in the country...
Gotta be big-ass trucks for quite a few places. ‘Specially Texas. The other facet would be poor states with lower average income will spend a higher percentage of income on the least expensive cars.
poor states with lower average income will spend a higher percentage of income
But the graphic uses an absolute USD value of 1000, so percentage of income isn't represented. It seems more like the big ass trucks are an issue in more swaths of the great plains than just in Texas.
West Virginia: Buying a $500 used car in cash
Connecticut: Buying a $50,000 new car in cash
There are many people in Connecticut who are not rich and live paycheck to paycheck. So fucking many.
Post pandemic the beater cars all went from $500 to $3000 and we out here struggling.
Oh I do know many Connecicutters are hurting. I have been to Hartford. Seen that shit with my eyeballs.
Texas and Wyoming lol not only do they buy vanity trucks but you have to drive at least 30 min to go anywhere. Paying 10 mpg and creating your society as spread out as possible, just to own the libs.
I have visited family out there and this is depressingly true.
you have to drive at least 30 min to go anywhere
If you're going to spend that much time on the road, best be comfortable, eh?
I would bet this tracks fairly closely to percentage of pickup truck owners
All lifted by the way
Of course they are lifted, and squatted! How else are you going to haul groceries from walmart?
Cybertrucks owners drive that even further up
At first it seemed wrong for Mississippi to not be the worst but then the reality of the median wage kicked in and it shows how little people in the state actually can afford.
Lot of poor folks driving around expensive ass Chargers, 300s, Escalades, Mustangs, etc well beyond what they can afford in the South. Then parking them in front of a trailer park or shittiest house you can imagine, with kids playing in the dirt around it.
Hood rich
Big dick trucks are expensive
small dick trucks
FTFY
;)
Oh it has nothing to do with genitals. Just the owners.
Who can even afford that.
I'm assuming this doesn't include maintenance or insurance?
Tbh surprises me just how many must be buying new cars too.
I know you’re right but gonna ramble a bit…
People still make stupid mistakes buying used because the issue is people wanting / buying far more vehicle than they can reasonably afford. Like you make 30K…maybe a 9 year loan on a 70K vehicle is a bad move.
I’ve had this conversation a handful of times with people that ‘like driving fast cars’ but aren’t really car people. They want to buy that used 50K M series BMW or AMG Mercedes 5-10 years later cause it ‘use to be a 120K+ car’. They then find out that the maintenance/parts costs are still that of a 120K+ car. Not to mention the reason it’s being sold now is it needs a 15K turbo replacement or the like.
Last year I bought a motorcycle and asked the dealer what’s the longest loan term they’ve ever got approved…15 years. For a powersport dealer! I didn’t even know that was within the realm of possibility. They don’t sell anything but toys.
Seems so nonsensical to me. Even if you're someone who drives every day there are perfectly serviceable used cars out there for $5000 whos remaining useful lifetimes outlast the repayment period of a new lease or loan.
Freedom*
*To work really hard so that you can hand it all straight to banks
fr just work less, spend less money, more free time to enjoy life
Total car payments for a single family? Cars or trucks? Does Texas just have reeealy bad loan rates? (Sure, I would like to say that the difference is because of oversized trucks, but reality is sometimes surprising.)
I can confirm places like Texas and Florida have much worse auto loan rates due to higher delinquencies. Northern states have better rates.
Bad credit and poor decisions. Texas has a lot of army bases and it's a pretty well established stereotype that 18-22 year olds fresh out of AIT make really poor decisions when it comes to car loans. Lots of Camaros challengers and mustangs at like 30%, then they get repossessed and sold to the next dumb kid.
Edit: added to the age range.
Does Texas just have reeealy bad loan rates?
I'm going to guess that since "everything is bigger in Texas!", people feel the need to buy tanks with wheels, which tend to be on the more expensive end of the car spectum (outside of luxury and exotic vehicles).
Either way, fuck that. $120,000 pissed away in 10 years for a car (PLUS insurance, gas, repairs...). Don't people want to be able to afford housing?
It doesn't say anything on how much more than $1,000 is spent. If in state a 2 out of 10 people spend $1,001 a year and the other 9 out of then $999 while in state b 1 out of 10 spends $2,000 a month and the other 9 out of 10 spend $999 then the stats show the are twice as many expensive in state a while in reality the only expensive cars are in state b
Why do people not understand how statistical statements work so often? The graphic shows one thing. It shows the percentage of residents who pay more than $1,000 a month on their car payments. That's it. That's all it's claiming to show. That's all it's trying to show. That's all it's supposed to show. Getting mad that it doesn't show 20 other aspects is ridiculous.
The graphic shows one thing
Literally the first line of my comment is "it doesn't say anything on how much more than $1,000 is spent".
Getting mad that
Not sure where you got the impression i'm mad about anything but ok.
This is all you really need to know about people's car payments:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gifYyVTHIfY
You can find this all over YT. It's insanity. For the record, my wife drives a 2019 Camry. I drive a 2012 Fiesta. Both paid off. I only have the Fiesta because my sister wanted to sell it and it was a good deal for the times where my wife and I both need to drive. We were a one-car family for a few years.
My rent was less than that in the aughts.
How many of these people live in their cars?
There are people in my hometown that have car payments higher than their mortgage payments.
I should appreciate how much work I don't have to do by not having a car to pay for
My mortgage is less than that today.
(Although TBF, that's because I bought during the Great Recession -- I wouldn't be able to afford to re-buy the same house today.)
I have never had that cheap a mortgage but it is scary when you realize you could not buy your house if you were looking to.
So color coding tells us 15 - 19% of people paying more than $1000/m is normal or the edge. I guess this decision is arbitrary, so I suggest a one-dimensional color scale.
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Oregon is the one that surprises me.
All the other green states are the low income states (except for the north east states like Maine, and that little corner).
But then there's Oregon, right between yellow California, and yellow Washington.
I'm also surprised NY is yellow. I thought the bulk of their population was JUST NYC. And most people in NYC don't even own cars.
Or is this a percentage of car owners only?
One possible reason is we don’t salt our roads in winter. Salt causes tons of rust on vehicles, but here you’ll see 1990 Hondas still looking practically new. People seem to drive their beaters forever.
100% the answer. I miss it so much. They salt like crazy around here and I can't find a car with a solid frame for under $10k.
The Oregon used car market was insane before cash for clunkers. You could buy a car from the '80s for $750 and reliably drive it for 100k mi. more.
People seem to drive their beaters forever.
how is this related to vehicles looking new? I see vehicles that are missing front bumpers and have visible rust all the time on the roads.
Oregon isn’t just Portland. The rest of the state isn’t nearly as developed. Same for NY - yes, huge population in NYC but there’s still a lot of people in nyc suburbs with money and cars.
Same can be said for WA, CA, ID, etc... Rural is rural.
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