I've been looking for a used-car ever since I got a new part-time job a few weeks ago. Luckily I don't necessarily need one, I just hate having to ask my parents to borrow the car every time, and although my parents don't say it, it's pretty inconvenient for them, and I have no car for myself when I'm off of work, so I either have to bum rides or ask my parents again. I'm also getting to the age (23, turning 24 this year) that not having my own car is kinda embarrassing.

The thing is that I don't have a huge budget right now (~$3000) that I can reasonably spend without becoming broke. I could just wait and save more, which some people suggest, but I'm incredibly impatient, and I've been stressing myself out on trying to find "a steal", so I've been spending hours wandering around FB marketplace, craigslist, etc. for a car that I want frankly insanely high standards for. Since I live in IL, I'm looking for minimal rust, lowish miles, JDM because reliability in their older vehicles, and nothing that a simpleton cannot fix.

So far every person I've contacted has either ghosted me, or there's another person ahead of me and they buy the car instead, and I'm getting more and more frustrated as the days go by, and start to just carelessly low-ball people, seeing if they'll even respond. One night, I found a couple of newly cars that I really liked, and instead of being professional and courteous like I did with the first couple of cars I saw, I just threw more lazy low-ball numbers. A few countered, but most ignored me.

The next day, I relooked through my messages, I actually saw that the person read my low-ball offer, and I looked more closely at the listing, and it was basically everything I wanted. Low miles, cheap, almost no rust, and reliable brand. I sent another offer and he responded that he would accept that new offer only if the person that day wouldn't buy, and that the reason he was selling it was because he was moving and couldn't bring it with him. Of course, the car did sell but I kinda realized that if I had actually done a reasonable offer or if i just inquired about the car first instead of just throwing a number, there was a good chance that I would have been taken seriously first, and the car could have been mine; so now I'm back to stressing myself out over an issue that I've created myself, that's really a non-issue.

Sorry if the formatting sucks, typing this on mobile.

TL;DR I'm angry at myself, because I'm giving myself a lot of stress about buying something I don't even really need right now.