It seems like every year I have another complaint about my vehicle situation. Whether it’s my old truck and the maintenance, having to get a massive SUV, or the fact that I unapologetically lease a German luxury SUV and I friggin’ love it. Now I have to complain that the (dirty, evil, so not FIRE thinking) lease is running out on the gigantic SUV I only planned to have for three years while my kids were in car seats and the car IS WORTH TOO MUCH MONEY!
Here’s the deal; Back in March of 2020 three things happened at once. I ripped out my whole kitchen by hand in preparation for a planned renovation, I found out my wife was pregnant with our third baby in four years on St Patty’s day, and Covid locked down the world the same day. Shortly thereafter I discovered that the Toyota Highlander I was currently driving, loved, and planned to buy out completely, couldn’t fit two car seats and an infant carrier. I was devastated, elated and kind of terrified all at once.
For a lot of reasons we decided to go buck wild on a full size SUV and Ford had the best price in the category. We call the car Goliath and with good reason. These things are enormous! It easily fit two car seats and an infant carrier across the second row bench seat with enough room in the rear to have a dance party. It’s also great on long drives, it handles bad weather very well, and it’s impossible to park in half the parking spaces I find.
All that said, we made a decision, for better or worse and it worked out well for us. It’s three years later and our situation has changed. I have two kids in boosters and one in a car seat. With that flexibility, and not having to transport a pack-n-play, stroller, and numerous other chunky baby related things around anymore, I have a lot more options in a vehicle. But there’s a catch.
In 2020, as we all know, the world collapsed. Cars were still “normal” price back then, and leases factored in an amount of depreciation as they normally do. The problem for everyone involved is that the depreciation didn’t really happen. Also, we don’t do a ton of driving, so the car only has 22,000 miles on it after three years (we were allotted 45,000). In used car terms, that’s nearly new. The original sticker price on this thing was an eye popping $72,000. Yeah, if you’ve never paid attention to all of the massive SUVs clogging up America’s roadways and parking lots, that’s what people pay for these things! Anyway, the buyout on this car is almost exactly $40,000 (the current price of, I don’t know, a Honda Civic?). However, if you can even find an Expedition with low 20k range mileage, they’re being sold for $52,000 or more.
My problem now is that I have potentially five figures of equity in a leased vehicle that I don’t technically need, and at the same time new SUV’s are selling well above sticker for much less car. To make matters worse, my wife uses the car a lot more than me and claims IT’S NOT BIG ENOUGH!!!! She spends a lot of time driving four or more kids around (our three plus friends) and with the third row up, there’s very little space for storage in the rear. So she wants Ford to sell us on getting an Expedition MAX, while I want Ford to either sell me my car and leave me with no car payment, or take my equity and drastically lower the sticker price of a new car.
This feels like an absurd situation to be in. From the prices of the cars involved, to the size of the cars, to the fact that a massive SUV could have so little storage space, to having equity in a lease. Financially, I know the two best courses of action would be to either buy my lease out, sell the car privately and pocket the equity, or turn the lease in hoping to get something for the equity and downsizing. But as a someone who feels the need to optimize every financial move I’m stuck weighing all options over and over.
Freed by 50 