would you rather have your own place, or your own car?

I'm not convinced you should get either. Let's say you have $5,000 saved. If you make $500 a month, you could afford a $1,000 apartment for five months, and then after five months you would have enough rent for 2.5 months, then enough rent for another month and then you can't make enough money to keep the place.

However, if you get a car for $3,000, then it's not worth that in a couple of years, and in the meantime you spend the other $2,000 on repairs, insurance, etc. You've put your money in something that loses value.

So I'm not convinced you should do either.

You need to run the math on both things. How much money do you have saved, how much can you earn, etc.?

Personally, I think it's a mistake to get your own place too soon. It can be lonely to come home to a place; roommates provide company. It's also expensive: if it's $1,000 a month, then it's $12,000 a year. After five years, you've spent $60,000, enough for a nice downpayment on a house. A car gets you around, but presumably you've figured out how to do that anyway. In the meantime, you lose the money you sink into it. I wouldn't get one until it was absolutely impossible to do without one. Otherwise, you're working just to support your car.

You can't move out based on savings, that's not how it works. You look at your monthly income and calculate 35% of what that income is, and then you search for places that are within that price range.

People suggest having savings IN CASE you lose your job, so that you can support yourself for a few months without losing your place until you can get a new job.

A car is more reasonable if you don't have to finance it with car payments, because then you will again have to calculate the part of your budget that is transportation (15%) to see what you can even afford.

If you're trying to rely purely on savings, both goals are out of your reach, car less than the apartment. If you have a regular monthly income that is more than $1200, then you have a chance of making either or even both work.

One of the many things my English and life skills teacher taught me not long ago was the order of big ticket items. He said go to college first (if you could afford it), then buy a house, then buy a car, then have kids. Marriage can fall anywhere in between these 4 big ticket items of your life.

It seems you want to rent an apartment instead of buying it. Is there a rush to move out? If you could, you should buy property instead. That way, you taxes are a little lower (because you own property) and you might earn a little income. But if you really want a car, don't aim for one too nice or too crappy. A nice car without your own property to come home to isn't really a nice car for long, and a crappy car is more expensive than it looks.

My advice would be to save up and buy property, but since I am not in your situation, it's your call.

I do not recommend either. The fact is if you need to go someplace now a days there is zipcar.com. It is perfectly acceptable to want to drive every now and then and this will afford you the opportunity without breaking the bank, depending on usage/plan, of course. Miles*, gas and insurance are included in the price. Keep your money and continue to save without having to worry about maintenance.

The car.

The upkeep of the car will be a lot less than the bills for an apartment.

If you mean buy a property then buy. A property increases in value long term. A car decreases in value.