Why is it that teenagers have a nice car when the work minimum wage?

I have yet to understand this. I'm 25 years old and drive a dodge caravan 2000 that is falling apart, I have never had a job that paid enough for me to obtain a car note. Right now I work as a housekeeper making 9 dollars an hour and there are these two girls who work with me who are about 18 who have a Honda civic 2010n and a Nissan ultima 2011. I'm literally tripping out on this and also feeling bad that I don't have a decent new car. Can you really get a newer car and afford the payments on minimum wage?

No. Absolutely not.

At a guess, these girls are still living at home with their parents AND mom+dad are helping out generously with the car payments. Or maybe they have rich sugar daddies? Either way, there's no way you can pay for a newer car on min wage and still support yourself without outside help.

You may think that your old Dodge is eating up your income in terms of repair bills. Guess what? It's still cheaper than the depreciation cost of any kind of newer vehicle, let alone the crippling interest rates of car payments.

Speaking personally, I could afford a newer car, but my 2007 Focus meets my needs and more importantly it's MINE. I own it and I'm not on the hook to some greedy lender.

Either their folks are helping them out or they will be paying interest their whole lives. I know it seems hard but take it from me. The only way to ever get ahead is to live beneath your means. I'm proud of you.

i can tell you this, Repairing a car that is hopeless can be an endless pit. My daughter was going to college in 2009 right after the cash for clunkers program destroyed all the used cars. She looked at a used honda civic with 250,000 miles on it for $5500.00. That was insane so I convinced her to look at new. She bought a Hyundai accent with a manual transmission and no power steering, radio or any extras for $8500.00 at 3.5 % interest. She still has it and the car has around 70,000 miles on it. Do the math but she was married with a working husband.

There's a chance that their parents bought them the cars? But to answer your question, if your credit is decent and you can save $300 a month or so you could probably finance a 4-5 year old sedan like the ones you described.

Parents are spoiling them or they've got a sneaky side job.

Either they are not footing the car bills alone or they are financially irresponsible.

Yeah, I have wondered that too but the parents must be helping out.

It's probably because their parents have alot of money to buy them nice cars!