Finance expert works out ‘how much you should make’ to afford to drive a Tesla Cybertruck

Car financing can be a pretty confusing system and, if you're not careful, even with a big down payment or deposit you can still end up paying a lot for your car each month.

That's especially true if you want the latest and greatest vehicles out there, and no car is more famous right now than Tesla's Cybertruck.

The electric vehicle (EV) is a stunner, but it also doesn't come cheap - and because of its massive size and interesting shape, it's currently pretty expensive to insure and own.

If you want to know how much it would cost to pay a Cybertruck off, an informative TikTok from finance expert Humphrey Yang is essential viewing.

In his clip, Yang walked viewers through the math they should be doing to work out whether they can actually afford a Cybertruck on their salary.

First, he showed what monthly payments would look like on the truck - which starts at $68,890 - with a decent 20% down payment accounted for.

Depending on how many years you were to sign up for, you'd likely be looking at between $913 and $1,294 a month just to pay off your Cybertruck with a 6% interest rate, numbers that Yang said look pretty steep compared to the national average for car payments.

He then explained that most people stick to the so-called '10% rule', which says that your car payment shouldn't exceed 10% of your take-home salary each month, to avoid too much financial risk if you lose your job or have a downturn of some sort.

According to his calculations, this means you need to be earning at least $91,300 to pay a Cybertruck off safely over six years, while shorter plans see that salary go up to more like $130,000 - that's good money!

Of course, for what is a pretty out-there off-road vehicle, it probably doesn't come as a huge surprise that you'd want to be financially nice and secure before you buy it, but there are still some disappointed commenters under the video.

One said sadly: "I'm writing this whole thing off", but there was hope for another, who seemed pleasantly surprised: "The income isn’t as high as I thought it would be. I’ll have to give this some thought…"

But even after your monthly payment you're probably looking at some pretty chunky insurance costs for any Cybertruck, so be sure to factor that into your calculations if you're a Tesla fan eyeing one up for yourself.