A vehicle is a big investment that will stay with you for years to come. You need to take care when you purchase a vehicle to avoid unnecessarily driving the price up.

The following are five mistakes you can avoid to be sure that you're not spending any more than you should be on your new vehicle:

Not setting and sticking to a budget

It's easy to get carried away with your vehicle purchase if you aren't strict with yourself about setting a budget.

Crunch the numbers to figure out how much you can afford to spend on a vehicle. Then, be disciplined while you're shopping and avoid spending any time looking into vehicles that are outside of your budget. 

Failing to put enough research into your purchase decision

There are a lot of different features and options that a vehicle can offer. Before you consider buying any vehicle, you should be well versed in what the features are and what options you'll have to choose from to pick the right vehicle for you.

Don't focus only only on features and options when you're doing your research. One of the most important things to focus on is the prices that the vehicles you're interested in are selling at. You need to have accurate pricing data on hand to negotiate your vehicle purchase with the dealer. 

Going straight to the dealer for financing without looking into other options

Car dealers don't always offer the best available financing on vehicle sales. Sometimes, you can find lower interest costs for vehicles you pre-finance rather than financing them at the dealership.

Before you head to the dealer to discuss new vehicles, you should look into your financing options. If you get pre-approved, you'll know without even asking the dealer how much you can get financed for to purchase a vehicle.

Focusing too much on monthly payments and not enough on purchase price

The key number to consider before you purchase a vehicle is how much the vehicle will cost you overall. Monthly payment costs depend on a variety of factors including the vehicle cost, the loan length, and the down payment. 

When it comes to negotiating your vehicle purchase, you should only be focusing on getting the total costs down as low as possible. Any details regarding loan repayment should be discussed with the institution that's financing your vehicle purchase and not necessarily the vehicle dealer. 

Not calculating in advance how much you'll have to pay on insurance

The costs of insurance will be a necessary expense that goes along with owning and using any vehicle you purchase.

Make sure you're aware of how much it's going to cost you to insure a vehicle before you buy it. This will help you stay in your budget when looking at new vehicles for sale and avoid excessively expensive insurance premiums.