It’s never been less fun to be a “car person.” In June, rising auto prices[1] and interest rates on car loans[2] pushed the average monthly car payment[3] to a record-high $712, per a Cox Automotive/Moody’s Analytics analysis[4]. The median number of weeks of income required to purchase the average new

In 2018, I quit my full-time job that paid $60,000 a year without an emergency fund. I wanted to be a full-time writer, but I had to take side gigs along the way until I got there. I lost money driving for Instacart, and I made more from copywriting gigs.