Where did I go wrong financially?

I lease my car and have no intention of owning a car whilst I have a mortgage, which is 22 years left on it. They depreciate so I don’t see the point in “investigating” in a vehicle.

Car financing costs you money, it is effectively interest payments. These are usually more expensive than a mortgage, though cheaper than an unsecured loan. The bigger issue is that you are tempted into a more expensive vehicle than you can actually afford, occurred of just saving for a bit, getting public transport, and buying a cheaper car outright.

I don’t know where in the country you live but the public transport is very expensive in my area. To travel to work it costs £6.80 for a return bus ticket, takes 1h - 1.5h each way, and parking is £7.50 per day with 35 minutes door to door.

By having a car on my work days I can pay less child care because I don’t need the extended drop off and pick up time. I have got the bus for the past 4.5 years so I know it is entirely possible, time consuming, and expensive.

I completely agree about the more expensive cars being an option. I pay £325 per month to lease a car, I chose new but second hand were available between £285-£325. The finance deals I looked at were for purchasing the vehicle and I have no interest to actually own a car.

I calculated I could save £350(ish) per month towards a car and I was looking at cars in the range of £6-£7k, this would have taken just under 2 years to save for. I would have purchased the car for £6k-£7k but then 12 months later it wouldn’t be worth £6-£7k but maybe £4.5-£5k and each year losing money. So I never would have had the value of the £6-£7k back in my pocket.

With the lease I get a certain level of serving included and paid for, so it seemed to me at the time a good choice.

If you can see any floors in my logic I would be interested to hear this.

I have always bought 2nd hand cars outright, always getting a slightly better one each time. My last car cost me £5k and was 6 years old. It has cost me no where near the equivalent of £300 per month in the 6 years I have had it. I went for a small reliable run around type, and have only had to MOT it and a couple of wear and tear type repairs. It’s still going strong and I anticipate having it for several more years until it becomes too expensive to get through MOT. I already have the money saved for another 2nd hand replacement.

with a lease you will be paying £350 per month every month. Are you planning to buy it at the end, or continue with another lease, paying out each month for ever?

You must know some very wealthy people if they have paid off their mortgage at 38. I know plenty that age no even able to get a mortgage, never mind pay it off. At 38 as a couple with a young family we were really struggling with 15% interest rates, negative equity and then an under performing endowment to top it off. 30 years on we have savings, good pensions and several properties owned outright. You are taking a very narrow view of your life, there's plenty of time ahead of you to turn things round. Don't despair but do stop comparing yourself to others, it will just eat away at you. You've probably got 35yrs of work to come, plenty of time to get yourself to your happy place.

Apart from very lucky people who are gifted/inherit a lot of money, and those who work every hour of the day and squeeze every last last penny (read this as having no fun!!!) most of us are trying to balance the line between being prudent and enjoying life. When I look at mine and DH situation, both good education and career path, we could probably be sitting mortgage free in a huge house right now if that was all that was important to us. The reality is I have had almost a decade off work to SAH with the kids, my DH took some time off during covid to retrain and move his career in a different direction as he wasn’t happy, and we have enjoyed nice holidays over the years and pay for lots of activities and sports for the kids etc. Yes our house isn’t big enough, we can’t justify the cost of running more than one car which is a pain, and due to cost of living increases are not really having holidays at the moment (and still have over a decade left on the mortgage). If I could go back I wouldn’t change a thing, life is for living and as long as you can put a roof over your head/pay the bills etc having lots of money is overrated!!!