ATikTok user who goes by the name Blaisey Arnold says she has two massive car payments every month: one for her Chevy Tahoe SUV, which she financed for $84,000 at a 10% interest rate, and the other for her husband’s GMC Sierra 1500 AT4 pickup truck, financed for $78,000 at 14%.
The monthly payment on her Tahoe is $1,400, she says, and the Sierra payment is $1,600.
“Why did I do this to myself?” wonders Arnold in one video, which has 2.5 million views. Viewers on TikTok expressed disbelief, confusion and shock about her costs in the comments. Some said that they pay less for housing than Arnold does for the two vehicles. Others directly faulted her money management. Arnold did not respond to interview requests from MarketWatch.
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Her conundrum is extreme: She financed the cars, it appears, in late 2021 and in 2022 at higher-than-average interest rates — the average rate for new-car loans ranged from about 4.3% in January 2022 to 6.7% in December 2022 — and she also chose to finance two pricey vehicles at once. But she is one of a growing number of Americans with car payments of $1,000 or more due to rising car prices and interest rates.
By this February, 17.4% of new cars were financed with a monthly payment of over $1,000, compared with 5% in February 2020, according to data from the car site Edmunds. Over the same period, the average transaction price for new vehicles jumped from $38,130 to $47,060, and the average interest rate on new-car loans went from 5.7% to 7.1%.