Transfer car loan for better interest rate
"Yes, it is possible for you to refinance your existing auto loan, and so long as you can get the loan on more favorable terms (e.g.: lower interest rate), it is absolutely a smart thing to do. In fact, you would be well advised to do so as soon as possible if the car was a new car, if you refinance a NEW car soon enough you will likely still be able to get new car interest rates. Even if it is a pre-owned vehicle you shouldn't wait too long, since your car will only depreciate in value.  You will almost certainly get more favorable terms from any bank or credit union directly then you would when you go through the dealership, because the dealership is allowed to mark-up your interest rate several percentage points as profit for themselves. Your best bet would be to go to a local credit union, their rates tend to be most competitive since they are ""owned"" by their members." The key word you are looking for is that you want to refinance the loan at a lower rate. Tell banks that and ask what they can offer you.
Inflation is basically this:  Over time, prices go up! I will now address the 3 points you have listed. Suppose over a period of 10 years, prices have doubled.  Now suppose 10 years ago I earned $100 and bought a nice pair of shoes.  Now today because prices have doubled I would have to earn $200 in order to afford the same pair of shoes.  Thus if I want to compare my earnings this year to 10 years ago, I will need to adjust for the price of goods going up.  That is, I could say that my $100 earnings 10 years ago is the same as having earned $200 today, or alternatively I could say that my earnings of $200 today is equivalent to having earned $100 10 years ago. This is a difficult question because a car is a depreciating asset, which means the real value of the car will go down in value over time. Let us suppose that inflation doesn't exist and the car you bought for $100 today will depreciate to $90 after 1 year (a 10% depreciation). But because inflation does exist, and all prices will be 0.5% higher in 1 years time, we can calculate the true selling price of the car 1 in year as follows: 0.5% of $90 = 0.005*90 = $0.45 Therefore the car will be $90 + $0.45 = $90.45 in 1 years time. If inflation is low, then the repayments do not get much easier to pay back over time because wages have not risen by as much.  Similarly the value of your underlying asset will not increase in value by as much. However as compensation, the interest rates on loans are usually lower when inflation is lower. Therefore generally it is better to get a loan in times of high inflation rather than low inflation, however it really depends on how the much the interest rates are relative to the inflation rate. "Credit reports have line items that, if all is well, say ""paid as agreed."" A car loan almost certainly gets reported. In your case it probably says the happy ""paid as agreed.""  It will continue to say that if you pay it off in full. You can get the happy ""paid as agreed"" from a credit card too.  You can get it by paying the balance by the due date every month, or paying the mininum, or anything in between, on time. But you'll blow less money in interest if you pay each bill in full each month. You don't have to carry a balance. In the US you can get a free credit report once a year from each of the three credit bureaus. Here's the way to do that with minimal upsell/cross-sell hassles. https://www.annualcreditreport.com/  In your situation you'd probably be smart to ask for a credit report every four months (from each bureau in turn) so you can see how things are going.  They don't give you your FICO score for free, but you don't really care about that until you're going for a big loan, like for a condo. It might be good to take a look at one of those free credit reports real soon, as you prepare to close out your car loan. If you need other loans, consider working with a credit union. They sometimes offer better interest rates, and they often are diligent about making credit bureau reports for their good customers; they help you build credit. You mentioned wanting to cut back on insurance coverage. It's a worthy goal, but it's generally called ""self-insuring"" in the business.  If you cancel your collision coverage and then wreck your car, you absorb the cost of replacing it. So think about your personal ability to handle that kind of risk." The advice given at this site is to get approved for a loan from your bank or credit union before visiting the dealer. That way you have one data point in hand.  You know that your bank will loan w dollars at x rate for y months with a monthly payment of Z. You know what level you have to negotiate to in order to get a better deal from the dealer. The dealership you have visited has said  Excludes tax, tag, registration and dealer fees. Must finance through   Southeast Toyota Finance with approved credit. The first part is true. Most ads you will see exclude tax, tag, registration. Those amounts are set by the state or local government, and will be added by all dealers after the final price has been negotiated. They will be exactly the same if you make a deal with the dealer across the street. The phrase Must finance through company x is done because they want to make sure the interest and fees for the deal stay in the family. My fear is that the loan will also not be a great deal. They may have a higher rate, or longer term, or hit you with many fee and penalties if you want to pay it off early. Many dealers want to nudge you into financing with them, but the unwillingness to negotiate on price may mean that there is a short term pressure on the dealership to do more deals through Toyota finance. Of course the risk for them is that potential buyers just take their business a few miles down the road to somebody else. If they won't budge from the cash price, you probably want to pick another dealer. If the spread between the two was smaller, it is possible that the loan from your bank at the cash price might still save more money compared to the dealer loan at their quoted price. We can't tell exactly because we don't know the interest rates of the two offers. A couple of notes regarding other dealers. If you are willing to drive a little farther when buying the vehicle, you can still go to the closer dealer for warranty work. If you don't need a new car, you can sometimes find a deal on a car that is only a year or two old at a dealership that sells other types of cars. They got the used car as a trade-in. "I'd lean toward using the $3,000 from the emergency fund although depending on your monthly bills, a $2,000 emergency fund (or even a $5,000 one) may be a bit small. But here are a couple of other options for you: Zero-interest balance transfers: If you have cards and have a zero balance on them, your credit card companies are keen to see you put a balance on them. Find out if they're offering any ""12 months no interest on balance transfers"" offers (or if any of their rivals is), since of course the car loan is an outstanding balance you can transfer (you're not asking them for cash). Put the $3,000 on that zero-balance transfer option, get rid of the car, and pay the $300/mo to pay down the balance on the card. 10 months later, two months before the end of the free period, you're at zero again — without dipping into your emergency fund. You'll also now have a history with that card company of paying back, which may lead them to attempt to entice you to go into more debt (which you'll resist, of course) by increasing the limit. (If you don't want a higher limit, just tell them to reduce it again.) A $3,000 unsecured loan with no pre-payment penalty provided the math works out. The interest may be expensive (unless you find something with a teaser rate for the first X months), but if you find an option, do the math on it to see if it's actually more expensive than carrying the car payments, insurance, etc. on a depreciating asset. It may not be as expensive as the 20% rate or whatever makes it sound (but again, do the math), and if you apply your $300/mo to it, within (say) 11 months you're clear again — with a nice little paid-back loan on your credit report. Both of these ensure that you still have your emergency fund at your disposal, and both capitalize on the fact that right now, you're probably a good credit risk. If you dip into your emergency fund, and an emergency happens (like loss of a job) and you find yourself short of funds, you may have trouble securing further credit at that point to cover the gap in your emergency fund." You're not going to like this answer.  You might be able to get out of the car. You probably won't be able to get out of the loan.  Option #1 - Sell the car privately (you'll get more in a private sale) and get a private loan for the difference between the sale price and what you owe.  Option #2 - If you go to a dealership that advertises that they will take any trade no matter how much you owe, they will roll your balance, less your trade in value, into your new loan. So for example, Let's say you buy a car for and borrow $20,000. The dealership gives you $6,000 for your trade because that's what they do that leaves $9,000 on your loan and you will end up borrowing $29,000 to buy a $20,000 car. Dealerships can be surprisingly accommodating but a lot of car buyers don't understand the terms of what they're getting into. I actually knew someone a few years ago who left a dealership with a new car and couldn't tell you anything about the deal beyond her monthly payment.  Option #3 - Hang on to the car and throw every extra penny at it to get the balance down on the loan until you can get it to the point where you can sell it, trade it in or refi it without putting out a big one time cash payment. You should not seek a kind of debt just for it's appearance on your credit report.  If you don't need an auto loan don't get an auto loan. Getting a credit card for the purpose of building credit is a little bit of a different animal because you can use a credit card such that you never pay any interest or fees.  With a loan, you will pay interest.  Altering your score by paying interest doesn't provide you with a net benefit. With that said, depending on the auto loan rate you may want to accept the loan just to fee up your capital.  Some promotional rates are so low you may even make money leaving the cash in a regular savings account.  But don't let your credit score wag the dog. "It all depends on your loan contract, and the way most are written, the 10 day thing will not help.  However, assuming that the contract is written in such a way to allow this, the difference will be negligible. By ""saving money"" I assume you mean the amount of interest paid.   There is really two ways of doing this.  If you carry the loan to term paying the indicated amount on the due date you will pay $6,140 in interest.  An increase of over 33% to the cost of the car.  Yikes, that is a lot of money.   You should seek to minimize your interest expense.   One way to do this is to reduce your rate.  Applying for a new loan that is at a more reasonable 6% and continuing to pay the ~285 per month will reduce the term to 59 months and only cost you $2,245 in interest.  A large savings.   Even better is to work a second job and earn an extra 1,000 per month.  Then bundle it with your 285 payment and shoot that at the loan.  This way you will only pay $965 in interest, and have it paid off in a year.  Once you do that, you can stick $300/month or so in a savings account or other investment and pay for every other car in cash.  Making choices like these leads to building wealth.  So the question becomes do you want to spend the rest of your life on the hamster wheel of car payments, or do you want to spend one year in pain so you make smart choices in the future?  The choice is yours." "Numbers: Estimate you still owe around 37000 (48500 - 4750, 5% interest, 618 per month payment). Initial price, down payment, payments made - none of these mean anything.  Ask your lender, ""What is the payoff of the current loan?"" Next, sell or trade the current vehicle. Compare to the amount owed. Any shortfall has to be repaid, out of pocket, or in some cases added to the price of the new car and included in the principal of the new loan.  You cannot calculate how much you still owe the way you have, because it totally ignores interest. Advice on practicality:  Don't do this.  You will be upside down even worse on the new car from the instant you drive off the lot.  Sell the current vehicle, find a way to pay the difference - one that doesn't involve financing. Cut your losses on the upside down vehicle. Then purchase a new vehicle. I'm in the ""Pay cash for gently used"" school, YMMV. Another option is to go to your bank.  Refinance your car now to get a lower interest rate.  Pay as much of the principal as you can.  Keep that car until it is paid off.  Then you will not be upside down. If you're asking how to use the estimator on the webpage.  Put the payoff in the downpayment as a negative and the trade in value in the trade in spot.  Expect the payment to go up significantly.   Another opinion that might be practical advice.  Nothing we say here will convince your financially responsible spouse that this is a good idea."