A car loses value the moment it's driven off the lot, and it keeps losing value every year after that, regardless of how well it's maintained. That single fact should shape every decision around buying one, and for most people, it doesn't.

The first rule: never finance a depreciating asset for longer than you'll actually want to keep it. A seven-year loan on a car most people trade in after four or five years means paying interest on value that's already gone, on a car you no longer even own by the time the loan reflects its real worth.

The second rule: the total price matters more than the monthly payment. Dealers sell monthly payments because a stretched-out term makes almost any price feel affordable in the moment. The actual total cost, principal plus every dollar of interest across the full loan, is the number that matters, and it's routinely far higher than the sticker price ever suggested.

The third rule: buying used, ideally a few years old, lets someone else absorb the steepest part of the depreciation curve, the drop that happens in the first year or two of ownership. A car three years old has often already lost much of its value while still having years of real use left.

Gregory Mannarino's core inflation logic applies here too — a car is not an asset that protects your wealth. It's a tool, and treating it like an investment worth stretching your finances for misunderstands what it actually is. Buy it like the depreciating tool it is, not like something that's going to grow in value the way real assets do.