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We talked to lots of people and learned that Hondas and Toyotas last forever(handle lots of mileage) and are great vans.... We bought an older used van with miles on it... That's the only way we could really afford one! But I feel your pain in how expensive they are!

Used, or something off a lease?

It might be that buying new with zero % financing is going to come out the same as buying used with a personal loan from a bank.

How often do you do road trips? If it's only occasionally, you'd almost definitely be better off financially renting a van for trips and sticking with/getting a smaller vehicle. You don't need a van (or even a mid-size SUV) to cart 2 or even 3 small children around, and gas is not a negligible expense on a bigger vehicle.

To answer the question: We buy small, fuel-efficient cars and rent if we need a van.

If you can manage, put it on your home loan? We refinanced our loan last year to do some major home renovation and took out a bit extra to buy a car. It is still sitting in my home loan redraw facility waiting to be used when the new car model comes out.

I think it depends on your personality. Most of my friends prefer brand new cars (less than 3 years old or off the lot) and the majority of them lease or finance with largish payments.

My husband has never financed a car in his life and never will(maybe if he got 0% interest), but he just prefers to pay cash. And he'll shop around for a looong time until he finds just the right deal.

We just bought a top of the line Highlander--its 5 years old, has every extra feature, is in great shape with all maintenance records (he bought it from a mechanic), it has less than 75,000 miles on it, and cost less than $20,0000.

We were driving a Honda Accord that had 225,000 miles on it (bought in cash 4 years ago). We've never had to do any major work on our Honda and are hoping for the same with the Highlander. So we paid less than half the price of the car 5 years later.

So if you dont mind buying older, there are great deals to be had paying cash through Craig's list and autotrader.

We traded in our old car and paid the rest with cash. We shopped around online and had to find dealers that were willing to deal. I think DH used the True car app? We also bought at the end of the month.

There is/can be good financing rates and deals for used cars. I just bought a used Lexus RX SUV and got 0.9% financing through Lexus. My credit Union offered me 2% and I told Lexus and the dealer said he would beat it. I also got them to throw in a free set of snow tires, so you can also negotiate for stuff that can save you down the line too, on top of sale price and financing. I bought a certified Lexus, which included the extended warranty at no additional cost. I'm not sure if the Honda extended warranty costs extra on certified vehicles - my Toyota one did 8 years ago when I last bought.

Research, research, research. Figure out what you want, what you would like, and be prepared to wait in case the right vehicle doesn't come along right away. I've heard shopping at the end of the month helps too.

The people I know who have vans have big ugly monthly payments that they can hardly afford or they lease. The people who lease can't afford the van. They just pretend they can.

We buy our cars 2-ish years old with cash for the most part and then drive them into the ground, but my mom's friends always lease their vans and SUVs on a 3 year plan, and then turn around and buy them from the dealer at the end of the lease. The idea is that they get a brand new vehicle but a cheaper payment (you usually don't need to put as much down on a lease and the payments are smaller) and then at the end of the lease you end up financing the depreciated value of the car on 5 or 6 year plan, which keeps the payments manageable still. That doesn't strike me as a great idea, especially since you're making payments for like 8 or 9 years, but I guess if you get a very good new Japanese SUV or van they can last 10-12 years and still hold a decent value if you want to sell it or trade it in on another car.

While I was trying to get out of credit card debt, I only bought previously owned cars. Now that we don't have credit card debt, we buy new cars and get them financed at low rates. Some months we double up the payments so end up paying it off faster. We're in the market for a 2016 Oddysey but will buy around Feb or March of next year. We're already working with a sales guy. We like to shop around and compare different quotes. We make sure we're only paying 1 car note at a time though. My current SUV will be paid off in Dec.

@Mrs. Pinata: I drove my 1998 Accord until we traded it in for our Honda Pilot in 2011. I think it had 210,000 miles on it! Hondas are the best.

We have a 2010 and it had 29k miles and we pay less than $400 a month. Love love love our minivan.

@Mrs. Pinata: Your local dealership may rent vans from their fleet department - our Toyota dealer does - and our friends who have done it say it's way cheaper than a rental company. And there's probably a good reason - they ended up buying one after their second rental.

This post is so informative. It never occurred to me to find a lower rate elsewhere and borrow the money to pay for the car in cash! Doh.

We're in the market for a family vehicle within the next 6 months and will definitely look into that. We won't be trading in because at that point we will be a two vehicle family.

What do you consider to be a reasonable monthly payment? We recently traded in a 2010 crv for a 2015 odyssey. Got 1.9% financing and price matched to Costco pricing (I like our local dealership, so I offered them the opportunity for us to buy through them before going to the Costco affiliated dealership). 5 yr loan is $300/mo.

We haven't done anything special to get ours but we did get 0% financing on a 2013 Sienna which we bought in fall of 2013. So that helps soften the blow of the monthly payment.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I love my CRV, too. I don't want to trade it in, if we end up getting pregnant after these twins arrive. Though, DH already offered to trade in his truck to a minivan if we have to. But after reading this thread, hopefully getting Diono Radian car seats will help prevent getting a minivan.

We save a lot. 8% of DHs paycheck goes into the company share plan with a company match. We cashed in a couple of years worth of shares at a good price and paid for our 2013 Honda odyssey almost in full. It feels good!

@mediagirl: you can lease a brand new honda odyssey for $250 a month! Not bad!