Creating a budget is easy. Sticking to it is a whole different story.
For any car buyer, it’s critical to understand how much car you can afford and what an estimated monthly payment could look like. To help you figure out what your budget can handle, we at Chrysler Capital created our Finance Calculators.
By doing your homework today, you’re building the foundation for buying a car you’ll enjoy and can afford. Here are the different budgeting tools in our Finance Calculators to help determine your car-buying budget.
HOW MUCH CAR CAN I AFFORD?
If you’ve never created a budget before, the task can sound daunting. The best starting spot usually is to begin determining how big of a purchase you are able to afford, which can be found in our Finance Calculator’s Affordability tab.
The reason I say “begin determining” is because, unless you’ve already applied for a loan and know what annual percentage rate (APR) you might be offered, completing this field is a guesstimate at best. But it’s a good launching point and shows you how much impact things like extending the loan term and a down payment can make when using our resources below …
MONTHLY PAYMENT
Our Finance Calculator’s Monthly Payment tab allows you to plug in your estimated price, finance term, APR and down payment to determine what your approximate monthly payment will be.
Each field is adjustable so you can discover the length of your potential financial contract and how it best fits with your available resources.
A LITTLE EXTRA
Think you may have some room to add on to your monthly payment? You can discover how additional money put toward your payments may impact your payoff amount under the Early Payoff tab within our Finance Calculator.
When you pay more than the stated monthly payment, the additional money goes toward your principal balance, impacting the life of your loan and reducing the amount of interest you pay. You can easily calculate how adding a few dollars to your payment today can save you much more in interest down the road.
FUEL SAVINGS
A potentially major factor in the car-buying process can be comparing what the fuel costs may be on your potential purchase with your current vehicle.
Our Fuel Savings tab will factor and calculate the costs for both vehicles to see if you may be saving, or spending, more on your new purchase. Figuring out how much you’re saving could go a long way toward how much you can afford on your car payment.
Josh Myatt is a Content Editor for Santander Consumer USA. He is the lead blogger for Chrysler Capital, covering the latest news and trends on the FCA US LLC brand as well as tips on maintaining and getting the most out of your vehicle. His posts have ranged from FCA US LLC vehicles receiving critical…
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