Last year it was our savings rate. In 2005, for the first time since the Great Depression, the personal savings rate fell into negative territory.

New vehicle loans over 60 months accounted for nearly 55 percent of loan originations, according to the Consumer Bankers Association's 2006 Automobile Finance Study. Used vehicle loans over 60 months accounted for 40 percent of originations.

"It is to a certain degree a sign that people are stretching," said Fritz Elmendorf, vice president of communications for the Consumer Bankers Association (CBA). "It does raise the question of whether people are buying more car than they can afford and should they put the brakes on their car-buying behavior."

This trend is troubling because stretched-out auto loans have led to another milestone, an increase in the percentage of vehicle owners who are "upside down." That's a term to mean your loan balance is higher than the value of your car. With a longer-term loan, the value of the car declines faster than the loan balance.

Recent data from Edmunds.com, an online resource for automotive information, showed 33.5 percent of car buyers had a loan term of 72 months. The average loan size was $26,156 with an interest rate of 9.6 percent.

Let's say you finance a car for $23,500 for 60 months at a 7 percent interest rate. Your monthly payment is $465.33. At the end of that loan you would have paid about $4,420 in interest. Finance that same vehicle for 48 months at 5.5 percent and you will pay about $2,730 in interest. Your monthly payment is higher, $546.53, but you save $1,690 in interest over the life of the loan.

If you need to keep your monthly payment around $465, get a less expensive car. Buy one in the $20,000 range and you can have the monthly payment you want and you won't have to stretch your payments out for five years. A $20,000 car loan for 48 months at 5.5 percent would get you a monthly payment of $465 and you only pay about $2,326 in interest.

The common definition of a debtor is one who owes a debt. But here's another one - one guilty of neglect or violation of duty. I like the latter definition.

When you get a loan for five, six, seven or eight years on an asset that depreciates the second you drive it off the lot, then I think it's accurate to say you're in violation of your duty to use common sense.

- Listen to Michelle Singletary discuss personal finance every Tuesday on NPR's "Day to Day." To hear her reports online go to http://www.npr.org. Readers can write to her c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071. Her e-mail address is singletarym@washpost.com . Comments and questions are welcome, but due to the volume of mail, personal responses may not be possible. Please also note comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer's name, unless a specific request to do otherwise is indicated.

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