My dad would always tell me never to lease a car.
I have no idea why.
There are only a very limited set of circumstances where leasing a car makes sense financially. It's only cheaper than buying if you know you aren't going to drive over the yearly mileage allowance, and you replace your car every year or two anyway (which is very, very expensive). Another reason might be that one doesn't have good credit, and leasing provides an option to have a new car without great credit. If you work for a car company leasing may occasionally be cheaper than buying.
There are many other reasons someone might lease a car beyond financial considerations. Once might choose to lease a car they cannot afford to buy because they want it for whatever reason. People involved in sales and client care might need to provide the impression that business is going very well, and they are willing to pay extra for that impression. Alternately they know they are going to replace their car every year anyway, and in that case leasing is always cheaper than buying and selling each year.
But if your primary motivation is "I need to conserve money, and I need to get from point A to point B reasonably" then leasing is rarely your best deal, though it may be your only deal if you are trying to build up your credit.
But I come from a long line of, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" type folks, so I buy good used cars, then keep using them until they cost more to fix than $0.10 a mile. In other words, if I have to replace the transmission (about $2,000), then the car has to give me an additional 20k miles before requiring another major repair. If I think it won't last that long, then it's time to junk the car and move on.
) Canada is a bit far from Dallas, Texas.