In short, since this is somewhat near term, you probably want as little risk as possible, so stocks are not recommended.

Said longer, a high interest savings account or bond fund at 2-3% is probably your safest bet, but you also need to consider the opportunity cost— tariffs WILL increase the price of a new vehicle this time next year, so are you planning to buy new? Does it make any sense to buy now and refinance later? Tariffs could be as high as 25%, depending on which way the wind blows (country of origin, assuming new, etc).

Opportunity cost aside, what’s your spending target, how much do you have saved already, and how much does optimizing on interest rate actually help?

From $0, saving $300/mo for 3 years at 0% interest is $10,800.

At 3% interest, the same total after 3 years is $11,127, which nets you $327. That’s not nothing, but even an insanely optimistic 10% is ~$1100, but you would be just as likely to lose money.

Your needs and risk profile are yours alone, we’d need a lot more information to say more than “low risk and buy used”.

So consider it from their position: fuck everyone else

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The best description I have seen for single store franchisees is, you’ve paid a lot to give yourself a job. They are not lucrative, and in fact, are capital intensive, and often predatory.

There is a very high up front cost, and you generally do not own the real estate. This means you are locked into 30 year leases, often with complicated terms that are solely beneficial to the land owner.

Next, with regards to liquidity, if you don’t own the real estate, you often can’t get multiple business loans with a single franchise, so you must secure the loan with your personal assets, which means you will go personally bankrupt if you hit a rough patch.

Then, after dealing with the complicated business to business transactions and legal work, you still have to deal with the corporate bullshit, taxes, and supervisory duties, particularly if you do not already have a strong business partner to do this for you.

Pretty much, unless you are independently wealthy, own the real estate in a high traffic location, or already have multiple other franchises, it’s a losing venture that will kill your soul and eat every dollar you have.

MMORPGs are an easy example, where people form recognizable identities and communities in game. An extension of this would be Second Life, and somewhat more recently, VRChat.