What car can I get for $800 a month?
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What does $800 have to cover?
A payment quote and an ownership budget sound identical. They are two different questions.
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The honest answer
About $5,194 of car
The loan, Toronto insurance, fuel, maintenance and licensing together stay inside $800 a month.
Treat $800 a month as everything the car costs in Toronto, the loan plus insurance, fuel, maintenance and licensing, and the most car this calculator will back is about $5,453, which comes to $806 a month all-in at 9.64% APR over 60 months (7.29% to 11.99% for your credit). Running costs alone are about $676 of that before a dollar is financed, which is why the car is smaller than the payment suggests.
Treat the same $800 as the loan payment alone and it backs about $33,600 of car instead. The $28,147 gap between those two prices is the rest of what a car costs, the part the finance office never quotes. Both answers use a used vehicle over 60 months in Toronto with nothing down.
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If it is the whole budget
$5,453
all-in: loan, insurance, fuel, maintenance, licensing
If it is the loan payment alone
$33,600
before tax; insurance, fuel and the rest come on top
The gap between those answers
$28,147
the part of the cost the payment quote leaves out
| Budget | All-in price | Loan payment | Loan-only price |
|---|---|---|---|
| $600 a month | no car at all | $600 | $25,200 |
| $700 a month | no car at all | $700 | $29,400 |
| $800 a month | $5,453 | $800 | $33,600 |
Is $800 a month too much for a car payment?
That depends on one number this page does not know: your income. So here is the same $800, treated as the all-in monthly cost, against four salaries. The share is measured on before-tax income because that is what the verdict bands are set on; the money itself leaves your take-home, and each income is one person's, not a household's.
$40,000 a year: Ouch
On $40,000 a year, $800 a month all-in is 24.0% of before-tax income. See what $40,000 actually supports.
$60,000 a year: Tight
On $60,000 a year, $800 a month all-in is 16.0% of before-tax income. See what $60,000 actually supports.
$80,000 a year: Manageable
On $80,000 a year, $800 a month all-in is 12.0% of before-tax income. See what $80,000 actually supports.
$100,000 a year: Easy
On $100,000 a year, $800 a month all-in is 9.6% of before-tax income. See what $100,000 actually supports.
If $800 is your loan payment alone, your true all-in share is higher than any line above, because insurance, fuel and maintenance are not in it yet.
The same question, asked backwards
This page turns a payment into a price. The other half of the insight turns a price into an income: the salary at which a car of about $30,000 still rates as manageable. Income needed for a $30,000 car.
People also ask
What car can I get for $800 a month?
Two honest answers. If $800 is the loan payment alone: about $33,600 of car, before tax, on a used vehicle over 60 months at the rate a good credit score carries. If $800 is everything the car costs each month, insurance in Toronto, fuel, maintenance and licensing included: about $5,453. The gap between the two is the running cost most payment calculators leave out.
Is that the loan payment or the whole cost?
This page shows both, because people mean both. A dealer quotes the loan payment; your bank account pays the whole cost. Insurance, fuel, maintenance and licensing do not stop existing because the ad left them out, which is why the same $800 buys a very different car depending on which question you are really asking.
My payment is quoted bi-weekly. Does this page still apply?
Convert it first: multiply the bi-weekly amount by 26 and divide by 12, because bi-weekly is 26 payments a year, not 24 and not twice a month. A bi-weekly quote always sounds like about half a monthly one and is actually more. The calculator takes bi-weekly directly, so you can skip the arithmetic and enter the payment as quoted.
Run it as your own scenario
This page holds everything still except the budget: a used vehicle over 60 months, Toronto insurance, nothing down, good credit. Your scenario is not that scenario. The calculator opens with the car this budget backs already in it.
Open this in the calculatorUnder 25? The insurance line is doing most of the pushing at this budget. What G2 and new drivers actually pay explains why, and what helps.