I HATE CAR LEASES

So I am not sure if I dogged a bullet or got myself into another one, but with the "downturn" in the economy, my wife and I decided to see if we could trade in our lease and get a newer "Family Mover"...

Our old lease - I thought had a km allowance of 24,000 kms/yr (about 15,000 miles).... anything over cost $0.15/km... turns out the allowance was 20,400, which meant that our "rationing" was a major issue and we were already over our lease allowance with 7-months to go. Long story short, come the end of the lease, I was looking at an approximately $4000 bill... F&*$(.

Long-story short, we cashed in our chips, ate a lower cost for getting out of the lease and financed a new van --- financed, because leasing rates are insane (13% - with very low buyback). That in and of itself is dumb, but dealerships & car companies are getting swamped with cars coming back off lease and they can't do anything about it (except stop leasing for the future)... basically, economics 101 suggests it might be a good time to start negotiating on a used car (cause they are all sitting on lots or in massive car parking lots).