A car payment can fit neatly into a monthly budget while the car itself quietly eats that budget alive. The payment only covers the money borrowed to buy the vehicle, not the insurance, fuel, maintenance, repairs, registration, tires, parking, or depreciation that come along for the ride.
That distinction matters because a dealership can make a vehicle look surprisingly affordable by focusing attention on one tidy monthly number. A better approach looks at the entire cost of keeping that vehicle parked in the driveway, because the monthly payment represents only one slice of the financial pie.
