The car was 20k. I got it down to 16k. But I had to drop insurance so they put their own insurance which brought it back up to $19k. I understand I will still owe a few thousand.

What is the car worth? How much do you owe on it?

Your best option is to sell your vehicle, if it is worth more than you still owe on the loan.

If you owe more than the vehicle is worth, then you'll need to pay the difference in order to sell the vehicle. For example, if the vehicle is worth $20k, but your loan is for $22k, you'll need to come up with the $2k difference at the time you sell the vehicle in order to walk away with nothing.

If you stop paying and the vehicle is repossessed, you still owe the total loan balance, less whatever the vehicle sells for at auction. In this case, your vehicle might sell for $17k at auction, so you'd owe $22k less $17k plus some amount of fees related to the repo, so perhaps $6k total that would go to collections. This is your worst option.

I'm sorry that you are in this spot, it sucks and candidly the options aren't great. But it also isn't the end of the world! Will your situation be resolved completely once the car is gone? I think you owe yourself an honest look at your total financial picture so you can address any other issues and be able to rebuild in a healthy manner moving forward.

So the principle balance on the loan is $19k now? What’s the value of the vehicle if you were to sell it?

I assume since you said you’d ‘still owe a few thousand’ that this means you have negative equity. If you were to sell the car (either to dealer or private), you’d have to come up with that ‘few thousand’ difference somehow.

If you trade it for a cheaper car, there’s a chance you could roll a bit of negative equity into the new loan, but that is not advisable. Tends to snowball quickly for people with a habit of doing that.

I would also be curious about the interest rate on the loan and the number of months for the financing?

If you sell the car, won’t you get some of the insurance back? Seems like you should.

Checking kelly blue books price now

Well before everything went bad I felt it would be the best option to sell it. I had an extra couple thousand and could pay the difference that was still owed. Truthfully I wish I would have listened to my gut but I didn't. So it is something that I had been thinking about for a long time now

All I could find is trade in value and that's 5-6k

The letters say I will get some of the amount taken off if I restart insurance on it

You don't have to answer this publicly but if I were in your shoes, here are the tough questions I would be asking myself:

Do I have other things I will need to purchase through debt (most notably a home) in the next few years? Is the car the only problem or is full bankruptcy a better LONG TERM solution? What other controllable expenses (credit card payments, non-essential spending, subscriptions, etc) do I need to get under control? What does my income growth look like for the next few years and how do I change that if it isn't growing? How much has to change for me to be able to consistently save money every month?

I also think that everyone should read the book The Richest Man in Babylon . It is a super easy read but teaches some great fundamentals on which to build your financial future.

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You owe 19 and it’s worth 5-6? I imagine private party is a bit more but nowhere near 19. You don’t really have any good options. Is is in good shape? Reliable? If so, your best bet may be to keep it while doing whatever you can to pay it down. Odd jobs, sell stuff, other ways to increase your income or reduce expenses?