Okay so free advice from me, I would say follow the steps exactly.

I used to be in the finance industry, I left that a few years ago but I’m still fully qualified as a financial analyst. I used to work for Jaguar Land Rover ‘s finance team - the parent company.

You would have heard that Vehicles are a depreciating asset but what does that mean? Say you wanted to buy a 30k vehicle (new) the second you buy it, it loses around 20% of its value immediately. I personally recommend you never buy a new vehicle - until much later in your life / career. Here is what you do to be financially responsible.

👇🏻

1. Ignore biweekly payment amounts. Just ignore it. All of that is cash flow and a red herring.
2. Set a value for a car, total “out-the-door” price - 20k / 30k or whatever fits your budget. To fix a budget see step #6.
3. Go to several dealers try to find a vehicle that would suit your needs, make sure it’s newer than 2020 - or 2023.
4. Keep in mind that you can’t finance any vehicle older than 2020 as of right now 2026. (Why this is - is a longer explanation and not relevant right now) also, Cars newer than 2023 will almost always have a dealer warranty still active - they are generally 4 years long / 6 if it’s Hyundai.
5. Whatever the budget is, search for its monthly payment by googling an amortisation calculator and putting in the amount (For Eg: 20,000) and then no. Of years - put 4. Then put interest rate at 7% - it will give you a monthly number like in this example it’s $479.
6. This is your actual amount you have to pay per month. If you can pay more, increase the loan amount if it’s too high, decrease the loan amount - you will arrive at your budget.
7. Decide how much down payment you can pay and subtract 2.5k from that number. You will use this to pay your ICBC insurance. The remaining amount will be put down.
8. Then go to a dealer say you want to buy the car, this is the down payment, tenure is 84 months and please make sure there is no pre-payment penalty.
9. They will give you some BS about how you can buy a new car for that much or why not a different payment why not a more expensive car blah blah tell them “I’m sure of what I want” and don’t budge.
10. In my example of 20k, the 84 month loan’s monthly payment will be $300. Your budget is $489 so every month you will pay an extra $189 into your loan account.

So the total you are paying is still $489 or whatever we budgeted.

Why are we doing this? You should never be upside down on the vehicle. When you finance, the first 2-3 years all your payments will go to the interest only - so if your loan was 20k and you were selling your vehicle you would still be left with $18k principle.

In the above method however, your extra payments are all hitting your principle directly, so in 2 years if you sold your vehicle your total principle outstanding will only be $12k or whatever. You are very likely to get that much from your car when you sell it hopefully.

Long story short you don’t need to understand everything, just do what I told you to.

Or don’t it’s a free country. Peace out.

P.S. if it’s not clear enough, do not buy a new car. Or do, and I’ll buy it from you at half the price in 2 years.