I am totally sympathetic to lusting for this car, but the quick answer to "is there any way I can buy a car that costs what I make in a year?" is NO.

Average American household -- including singles, no-kids, retired -- pulls in $38,500 and spends $287/mo. on car payments, but for many that includes two cars. Median income for a family of 4 in Mississippi is about $45,000, I think; your projected income of 30 puts you above the poverty line but would be considered "low income" by most government agencies. It ain't easy just making ends meet for a family on 30 these days. You probably qualify for low-income energy assistance and other programs, and I'd be investigating those rather than a Crossfire.

It's just cold hard math. An income of 30K in sales or anywhere else will be at best 25K after taxes/SS/Medicare, maybe less depending on state taxes. $616/mo.? $7400 a year out of $25000? Spending 30% of your take-home income just on car payments (that's without gas, insurance, fixing flats on a vehicle where tires alone are a mint)? Not possible without severely compromising other expense categories such as housing, clothes, education, savings....when you are already in debt, every dollar you don't pay off means an extra 5-20 cents a year in interest costs. Not only do you have consumer credit to pay off, if by family you mean kids, you need to be saving for THEIR college education NOW.

Chrysler's target Crossfire buyer makes 150K household. With some of the lease specials, one might not need that, but when I was making 30K/year, my car budget consisted of buying a 5-year-old subcompact, for less than $2000 cash; if I had financed, my budget would have been about $100-150/month in payments.

I'd suggest this: spend $25 for a copy of Quicken, or use a friend's or library's. Or find a free site online. Use the program's "budget" feature, a great tool, plan out your expenditures on everything BUT a car, then see how it fits in.

Before you jump into ANY new car, big payments, and serious boiling water, why not do a test run? For 4 months, see how much you can actually save -- put away in a jar, a savings acct, whatever. If you can't sock it away it, how ya gonna make the payment? And even if you can, do you want to spend every cent of your savings on a car when you have other obligations? I would also make this a joint decision. I don't know Mississippi domestic relations law, but I know plenty of situations in my state where hubby buying a car the family can't afford has not only led to big trouble, but can be considered "dissipation" of family funds.

There will be plenty of used Xfires available in a few years. Fortunately many of the buyers just have them as toys, they may get traded in just because someone with too much money got bored. In your position I'd target getting a cheaper Crossfire when your income is a little higher. Sometimes we just have to defer dreams a little.