TLDR
I make six healthy figures a year. I wanted to buy a Ford F-150 Lightning. The truck was right there. I could see it, touch it, smell the new off it. But buying anything big in America requires a three-legged stool — credit score, down payment, and proof of income — and I only had one leg so the stool fell over.
There are three things you need to buy anything substantial in this country. Not want. Not deserve. Not earn. Need. As in, the computer says no without them. They are:
Credit score. The number that follows you like a credit bureau guardian angel who mostly sides with the bank.
Down payment. Cash on the barrel. Skin in the game. Proof that you've been saving while also paying rent, insurance, child support, and $6 eggs.
Proof of income. Not what you make — what you can prove you make, on paper, in a format a 22-year-old finance manager can feed into a system that was built before the gig economies, contract jobs, or the great recession.
You need two out of three. Any two. Great credit and a fat down payment? Nobody cares what you do for a living. Huge income with a big check in hand? That credit score can be a little rough. Strong score and strong W-2? The down payment gets flexible. But one out of three? One out of three gets you a handshake, a business card, and a long walk back to whatever you drove in.
For me yesterday it was the truck – my mid life crisis little red corvette is a 4x4 extended cab with a battery. I found a Ford F-150 Lightning. If you haven't seen one in person, it's the truck Ford should have built twenty years ago. Electric. Quiet. A frunk where the engine used to be that's big enough to tailgate out of. Enough torque to tow a house and enough range to get you there. It is, without exaggeration, the best truck Ford has ever made. In my brain, it was already parked at the jobsite, getting charged for free on the generator behind the office trailer.
My math unfortunately is not pretty. Between 4 college students, an ugly break up, ailing father with no savings and life on life's terms, let's just say the creditors have gone to the end of the line a few times. I make a stupid amount of money every year. That's not a brag — it's a construction management salary with per diem, and I earn every dollar of it standing in the sun making sure solar panels go where they're supposed to go. By any rational measure, I can afford a truck payment.
Everyone knows the conversation. It applies to cars, to mortgages, refrigerators, phones, utility hook ups. Mine went the way it always goes. The salesman was my best friend. He loved the truck too. He's pulled it around front. He's talking about floor mats, extended warranties, free oil changes and car washes. And then the sentence — the nine words every buyer knows- the beginning of the end: "First, let me introduce you to our finance manager."
And out walks the Grim Reaper.
The finance manager doesn't hate us. He's pleasant enough even, in a disinterested, slightly reserved way. But, everyone knows what's next – can you get some more down, can you get a cosigner; maybe try again when you work on your credit.
The kicker is this makes a huge difference to the economy and it's a big reflection of economic health, because I'm not alone. Not even close.
Auto loan rejections doubled in 2025 — from 7% to over 15% in four months. Nearly half of all Americans who applied for any kind of financing last year got denied on at least one application. And here's the one that should make you throw something: 8.5% of Americans who needed credit didn't even bother to apply because they already knew the answer. The Fed calls them "discouraged borrowers." I call them people who've already met the finance manager's scythe. Corporate America wants customers. We are a Consumer Economy. Retail and real estate pay good money for folks whose living depends on selling stuff to the rest of us.
But people are getting refused credit when they've been raised to depend on it. 44% of discouraged borrowers would have been approved if they'd just walked in the door. Our whole way of life has been built around working for a decent wage and paying our debts. But - the American Dream has a guard dog at the door, and his name is FICO.
Personally? I'm not asking for sympathy. I'll get the truck or I won't, and either way I'll still show up to work on Monday and make sure a quarter-billion dollars worth of battery storage gets built right.
But somewhere tonight, someone is sitting in a finance office, and they make good money, and they pay their bills, and they need something they can afford, and a three-digit number is about to tell them no. No to a water heater or replacement tires or college tuition. Not because they can't make the payments. Because the stool only has one leg, and just to get shitty interest rates your stool needs at least 2 legs; credit rating, cash down, or excellent income.
And the finance manager is their Grim Reaper, wearing a name tag and a guarded smile.
