Hello everyone,
My mother-in-law (62) recently put herself in a situation that has our entire family extremely worried, and we’re looking for honest advice on what options she may realistically have.
She’s single, owns a home in Massachusetts, and is getting closer to retirement age. Financially, she was doing okay before this happened — about 8 years left on her mortgage, around $5,000 total in credit card debt, and she fully owned a 2017 Infiniti QX50 with about 90k miles.
Last week, we found out she financed a 2025 Infiniti QX50 for roughly $42,000. At first, she only mentioned the payment being around $845/month, which already sounded high. Once we looked over the actual lending agreement we were in shock.
The loan is 75 months at 13.77% APR for about $845/month and came out roughly $65,000 total sale price.
She’s now massively upside down on a vehicle that likely won’t hold anywhere near that value, especially over the life of the loan.
What makes this especially concerning is that she’s only a few years away from retirement and doesn’t have a large retirement fund to fall back on. We genuinely fear this purchase could seriously damage her long-term financial stability.
We understand she signed the paperwork and ultimately made the decision herself. We’re just trying to help her minimize the damage before this gets even worse.
EDIT: purchase agreement