I had to take loans on cars earlier in life, which probably is often the case. I had neighbors who always leased, but not me. I had paid off my first minivan in a few years, but kept it 12 years, it was a horse. So I started deducting $100 per month as a "future car payment" from my account put into a mutual fund. I didn't pay a lot of attention to it but finally noticed it had grown to enough to buy a nice new minivan outright. The new one had much better pickup and slightly better gas mileage and was larger to boot.
I eventually donated my old one with 155,000 miles on it to a "free food" outfit who told me they put another 30 K on it and then gave it to a church. Four cylinders with a 5 speed, bullet proof, easy to work on, etc.
