Car buying unit overview | Teacher resources | Financial Literacy | Khan Academy

Hi teachers,

Welcome to the unit on car buying. Now, car buying—or leasing, I should say—getting a car somehow is something that most people have to do at least once in their life.

The goal of this unit is to help your students navigate that process. First, to just even think about whether they need a car, how they might, and what they might be able to afford. It’s not just the cost of the car; it's all of the maintenance and the fuel and the whole cost of ownership.

Things like appreciation, thinking about whether to buy versus lease, and then going through the process of maybe negotiating a price, and some of the practices that might be involved when they do that. There's also questions of how do you pay for that car? Is it cash? Is it financed? Are you leasing it once again?

So, I encourage you to dig into this with your students and also don't be afraid to share some of your own personal experiences, because I know that you had some.