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When I lived in Florida, it would take me hours to travel to another state. Living in Brooklyn is a lot different: D.C., Philadelphia and Boston are all within driving distance. With a full tank of gas, a Big Gulp and some willpower, I can catch concerts throughout the Northeast.

The only issue? I don’t have a car.

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The subway works for my everyday needs, but road trips require me to rent cars. And that’s not cheap, especially when I’m doing it a half-dozen times a year. Sometimes when I’m waiting in a long line outside the LaGuardia Avis office, I wonder whether I should just give up and buy a car.

As a public-transit girlie, I don’t even know what that entails.

What costs should I consider when doing the math on buying a car?

Kimmie Andrews, a financial advisor at Birchwood Financial Partners, says a car is a tricky purchase on several levels. Sure, it may save me money in the long run, but cars are infamous for how quickly they depreciate.

A vehicle’s value drops the moment I drive it off the dealership lot. According to Kelley Blue Book, new cars depreciate about 30% in the first two years of ownership, plus as much as 12% every year after that.

“You want to make sure you own it, and it doesn’t own you,” Andrews says.

Bill Bergstrom, a certified financial planner with Focus Financial Network, says he calls cars “silent budget killers” because they end up being expenses, not investments. The statistics back him up: According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the average cost of owning and operating a car in 2025 was $11,578.

I’m privileged to live in a city with great public transit options, so for me, a car is a nice-to-have rather than an urgent need as it is in much of the country, where folks rely on cars to get to work, buy groceries and take their kids to school.

Still, when I’m running the numbers, there are several costs to keep in mind.

The first is the cost of the car itself. Ronald Montoya, manager of consumer advice at Edmunds, tells me not to simply look at the sticker price. I need to factor in sales tax and interest, too.

I could buy a car outright, but I don’t have that much cash on hand. So if I finance a car, I should nail down how long it’ll take me to pay off the loan. Montoya recommends I choose a term of no more than 60 months. The shorter, the better: It may be tempting to take out a longer loan and spread the payments out, but that means I’ll pay more in interest.

“A lot of people get tired of their car after four, five years, and . . . still have money they owe on it,” he says. “The purpose [point] is to get to the end of the loan and enjoy a period of time without any car payments.”

I could lease rather than buy, but Andrews says that car lease agreements often have strict mileage restrictions. Leasing can be cheaper than buying, but similar to how renting an apartment doesn’t build equity, “you put all that money into it and don’t have anything [to show for it] at the end of the day,” she adds.

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Next, there’s insurance, which costs about $193 a month on average but varies widely based on my location, age, vehicle type, driving record and more.

Then I should consider fuel (provided I’m not buying an electric vehicle, which is a whole other thing).

Montoya suggests I go to fueleconomy.gov and choose a model I’m interested in, then look at how much I’m on track to spend. As a benchmark, CarParts.com says the average driver spends between $130 and $200 on gas per month.

I need to factor maintenance in, too. At the very least, I probably want to plan for two oil changes a year and one tire rotation every six months.

Car repairs are a black box; costs are difficult to estimate because no two situations are alike. If I’m buying a used vehicle, Bergstrom says I can predict some of the repairs needed by remembering the acronym BELTS: Check the brakes, exhaust, lights, tires and service history. I can also look up the safety ratings for a specific model on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website to get a sense for potential safety issues.

Generally speaking, it’s reasonable to expect that the more expensive my car is, the more expensive repairs will be.

So what can I afford? Well, once I’ve got a total in mind for all of these costs, I need to compare it to my income.

According to Montoya, as a rule of thumb, I should strive to spend no more than 10% of my take-home pay on a used car and no more than 15% on a new one.

The bottom line

Frankly, I had no idea there were so many costs associated with buying a car. I need to do some more research.

“People think their car costs them what their payment is,” but it’s more than that, Bergstrom says. With depreciation, gas, insurance, maintenance, repairs and more, “it’s amazing how much money people spend on their automobiles when you look at all the costs associated with it,” he adds.

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