For the last few years I've had a "one month's pay rule" but I'll probably lease the next family car and use my "one month's pay rule" to put an old V8 barge in the garage for weekends.
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Sooo over a 15 year period, Escargot, you spent 511% of your gross income on cars, i.e. 35% per annum, so about 50% per annum after tax, every year. Wow!
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When I first started work after Uni, and lived at home I spent around 90% on a new car. I had worked and saved for it so no finance was needed.
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When I can afford it, 50%. But being a mere civil servant ,the car was always rather modest. Recently had a bottom of the range Passat diesel and now a pre reg Hyundai both roughly 50% of gross salary. That's roughly what my circle of friends, colleagues and family seem to spend. When I retire things will be different.
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>...35% per annum, so about 50% per annum after tax, every year. Wow!
Presumably we're just talking purchase price, MM. I expect our helical friend will have got something back each time on the empties.
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I expect our helical friend will have got something back each time on the empties.
Correct.
"All the subsequent ones were bought by part exchange of the previous car plus the cash difference which I saved up in the intervening years."
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My cars are multipurpose. They have domestic duties and business ones. They regularly need to cover over 40k per year. Therefore they depreciate like melting snow.
I have long taken the view that I would not spend more than 10% of any given years gross income on the purchase of one and in recent years I have been looking to get 3 years out of them. Any residual value at the end of that time I would view as a windfall. So in a worst case scenario the purchase price would not represent more than 3.3% of gross income even if I had to give one away. I prefer to see them as a disposable cost and as mentioned above, always pay cash from savings.
In the days when I had company cars, the other extreme was true. I can remember being issued with a car the value of which exceeded my annual income at the time. Heady days....
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When I retire things will be different.
Yep. You'll have to draw in your horns. Unless you're fortunate enough to have relatives who leave you money/property in their will. If (like me) you're not, don't be tempted to convert some of your pension into a lump sum at the expense of your monthly income.
Edited by L'escargot on 29/10/2008 at 11:12
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Wow!
I made sacrifices ~ no expensive holidays, no expensive electronic gadgets, no meals out, etc. etc. My main enjoyment was (and still is) having a car. If they really put their mind to it anyone could do it. I suppose that once you get on the treadmill of having everything on the drip it's difficult to get off it. You have to start off right. When I bought my first property ( a modest 2-bedroom flat) I sold the car that I had at the time car so that I could buy some furniture. I then saved up until I could buy a car again. It's all about deciding what you want most, and making the necessary sacrifices.
Edited by L'escargot on 29/10/2008 at 11:02
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>>My main enjoyment was (and still is) having a car.
Wow! A car is probably bottom of the list of requirements in my life. Meals out, fine wine, skiing holidays, hunting, fishing, antique furniture: yes. Cars??? It's all about priorities in life, and you seem to have it the way you want it.
Yes, sometimes I look at the DB9 that the hospital consultant parks in the office next door and think... that'd be nice to have. But the feeling soon passes!
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Wow!
Stop saying "Wow!"
Chacun a son gout.
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Never more than about 10% of gross. For me this is about £3000.
And I expect 5 years out of it at this price.
Edited by jase1 on 29/10/2008 at 11:31
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....... 10% of gross. For me this is about £3000.
That's too much information for us poor pensioners.
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As a high mileage driver I look more at total annual running costs rather than purchase price. For example, I shall buy over £5k worth of fuel for my car alone in the next 12 months. Add in a couple of services, some tyres, VED, insurance and a bit for contingencies and you get to £7k without really trying. Then you have to factor in the purchase costs.
Just while we are toying with percentages, it would be interesting, or maybe more accurately frightening, to look at the " What %age of the value of your car is represented by annual running costs" question as well.
Or maybe not....too depressing.....
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 29/10/2008 at 11:28
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I am siding with L'escargot on this one, but it does depend on what your car is used for.
If you just want a rugged workhorse to use and abuse and get you to your work then bangernomics makes sense. However, if you live in a part of the country where you can enjoy motoring, there is nothing wrong with spending a few quid on a decent piece of kit.
Historically, motoring was a recreational activity anyway, in the way that horse-riding and cycling are today. If you enjoy driving and are lucky enough to use a car in this capacity then go and enjoy the odd Sunday morning blast or trip to the coast.
I personally advocate having a £1k workhorse for all the day-to-day donkey work, as well as having something a bit special in the garage for those high-days and holi-days.
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I personally advocate having a £1k workhorse for all the day-to-day donkey work as well as having something a bit special in the garage for those high-days and holi-days.
I tend to spend about £4k on my workhorses, mostly as I can often work away from home for long periods of time and don't want the grief that an older car can give when I've not got the easy access to trade mechanics that I have near home.
The current special in the Garage is a Boxster S, a lot of fun and depreciation is low, so it costs almost as much as the opportunity cost lost through having the cash tied up in the car as it does overall.
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The price of my Berlingo was about 32.6% of my gross income in the year I bought it.
I might add that I hope to keep it for about 15 years.
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I remember a friends brother, back in the early 1970s. He had a very basic low paid job, lived at home with his parents who were in a worse position than him.
They couldn`t get HP due to being a poor credit risk but bought a brand new Ford Escort, collectively, on one of those mega interest 10 year loans.
I remember the horror of the figures, the final reckoning was over three times the cash purchase price of the car.
They were not quite OK really.. Subsequently out fussing over it in all weathers. His mother once said to me " our -------- is a non passed driver" (no learner plates on it)
Also knew a guy who bought a new four cylinder bike and couldn`t afford food.
Edited by oilrag on 29/10/2008 at 15:51
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This is not a matter I care to consider. I don't know what my income is and I don't know how much of it I spend on cars. Nor do I want to know either of these things. Their juxtaposition might make me wonder if I really needed a car. And I don't want to wonder that.
So the answer is that I really, really don't want to know.
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I usually think if I buy this car will I miss the money? if yes I will buy a bus pass :D
I am put off with modern cars due to the extreme complicity, I like late 90's cars as they still have a lot of safety kit and modern reliability but are cheaper to fix and you can always go to scrap yard to get parts.
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So the answer is that I really really don't want to know.
Yes, I've spent amounts of money I'd rather not think about on silly cars in the past, then thought better of it and replaced them with bangers. Then got the itch again, another expensive car and the cycle repeated itself. My only rule - cash, no finance.
At the moment I have an old nonbanger but certainly inexpensive car which I bought before changing jobs and getting given a company car. Sooner or later it'll dawn on me that it makes no financial sense to have a second car, but at the moment I like it too much.
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>>something more fun in the garage
Aha. If I were to have a garage... it would have a Mk ii jaguar sitting in it.
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What about 98.8%?
That's what Irv Gordon did.
"Irv Gordon, ... boasts the world's longest-running passenger car, a 42-year-old Volvo closing in on 2.7 million miles.
Gordon's car is touted by the Guinness Book of World Records as the vehicle with the "highest certified mileage driven by the original owner in non-commercial service."
And he's in West Michigan this week drawing attention to his 1966 Volvo P1800 and Volvos in general. Friday, he visited Betten Imports, 5901 28th St. SE, and today, he is to be the guest of the Great Lakes Volvo Club at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, northeast of Kalamazoo.
According to Gordon, 68, a retired science teacher from New York, he started as a fan of General Motors products. But after buying what he characterized as two "lemons" during the early 1960s, he searched for other options.
A friend suggested he try a Volvo, a make of car "I didn't even know about."
"I took a ride and fell in love with the car," he says, and on June 30, 1966, plunked down $4,150 for a showroom-new P1800, nearly the equivalent of his $4,200 teaching salary that year. "
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