A friend of mine who's had a decent job for the last 5 years that I've known him got into a car accident recently. He totaled his 12 year old car, wasn't paying for comprehensive insurance and doesn't have money to replace it outright.
He can't find a decent car for cheap and doesn't want to have a car payment. He “needs” to own a car outright because he doesn't want to worry about making payments if everything goes wrong and he has to sleep in his car.
He told me about a 4-5 month stretch in his life when he broke up with his ex, lost his job, was couch surfing, and sleeping in his car all while worrying about getting his car repossessed.