The average car loan in the United States has grown to 70 months in length. A year ago, the average length was 62 months, which was bad enough. But it’s gotten even worse. Payments on these loans don’t decline that much over time, but interest payments skyrocket. In addition, if you don’t keep the car that long you’re losing even more money. Cars are much more reliable these days so you can keep them for a long time. Yet, people are keeping cars just as long as they did a generation ago. Back then, people financed a car for the same amount of time they planned to keep it. If they took out a three-year loan, they kept it three years. Today, people take out much longer loans and they keep the car just a few years. So, they end up thousands of dollars upside down on the loan. Almost one in three car buyers are upside down in their car loans. The average car purchase last year was more than $29,000 and that is frankly more than most people can afford. You don’t want to be what’s considered “normal” nowadays. You want to keep a car an average 10 years. It will allow you to retire five years earlier and give you a lot less worry.