#WhatToBuy

Steve (not Lang) writes:

My wife has a 2013 Prius with a total of 36,000 allowable miles over the 36 month lease through June 2016. The problem is she now drives more and is already at 37,500+ miles! At 0.25 cents per mile, it will add up quickly.

Should we just plan on buying the Prius from Toyota for 16,400 at the end of the lease term? Or should we take a negative equity hit today, cash out and buy a 2015/2016 Honda Accord Sport/EX? We could be looking at $4,000 in lease payment to roll into a new deal to get out of Prius. We kind of learned our lesson to not do a lease since now she drives a lot.

We want to go on a road trip this summer.

There are four of us. Myself, my wife, a teen and a tween. The wife and kids are thin and I’m about average sized.

Why do I mention this?

We are looking at getting a normal-sized vehicle that can potentially sleep four. A minivan, crossover, or even a large SUV would be perfectly fine for us. We think that there will be times when we can’t use a tent, and I would rather get away from the overpriced state parks if it’s at all possible.

Our budget is $10,000. We don’t want anything funky to maintain. For us that means no VW vans. We will consider most anything else. All domestics and imports are on the radar so long as they allow us reasonable sleeping quarters for our family.

Any ideas?

Steve Says: