Just wanted to give you a word of caution about
trading in the car - Often the car is no longer worth what you owe and you can't just "give it back." When you trade it in for a cheaper one they take the difference from the trade in and what you owed and roll that onto the loan for the next car. Then, you are starting out upside down on that car. It may end up breaking down before you have paid it off and you wind up getting another car while still owing a ton. It is a viscious cycle so just be careful. I understand if you can't afford it you can't afford it, but make sure you aren't setting yourself up w/ debt you can never get out of. We kind of inadvertantly got in that position. I have been driving a paid off car for years. My husband, is a different story.
His parents gave him a hand me down SUV that was paid off. It started having recalls and safety issues. The back window fell out on the highway. I agreed we had to get rid of that car. We traded it in for a truck. After driving it a month he realized the truck was too small for his 6'5" body and his head was hitting the ceiling, etc.. Why he didn't realize that on the test drive, I will never know. So that one went back and we got a great deal on an SUV. We both had jobs with no snow days and needed to get to work so we thought it was great.
Then gas prices sky rocketed and SUV's plummeted in value. He ended up finding another job 45 minutes away. The SUV was no longer a sensible solution. It took too much gas and gas was too expensive. We could afford the car, not the gas. We found another cheaper car but what we could get on trade for the SUV and what we owed differed by about $5,000. They just rolled it into the loan on the next car. The next car is a piece of junk and has needed all kinds of work. We really need to get rid of it. But now we owe about $8,000 more than what it is worth. We are looking to get a direct trade. An old car priced at the same amount as the one we are trading in. We are going to only do a 3 year loan so we can finally pay off the difference and be even again. It is a mess. We can't even give the car away because of how much we still owe. Just don't get in that situation!