to ask how you afford your posh car?

[SteveHarringtonsChestHair]

My DS (22) is becoming increasingly frustrated by the disparity between the life he aspires to and the one he thinks is possible!

As a car enthusiast on a good wage, he is constantly surprised by the number of brand new premium brand cars (BMW, Mercedes, Volvo etc) that he sees on the roads, which he feels he has no hope of ever affording.

He’s asked my to ask you all, if you drive a premium brand car, paying presumably £400-500 a month to buy or lease, what type of job do you and (if it’s not too rude to ask, what sort of salary are you on?) And if your spouse also drives a similar car, what do they do/earn?!

I know there are lots of factors here including whether you’re paying a bit mortgage, is it a company car etc? But just a snapshot of who is driving these expensive new cars might help him put it all in perspective. TIA

btw I earn NMW and drive a 10 year old car so I’m no help here!

I wonder if this is why they are discontinuing the Fiesta because all the young kids are leasing brand new prestige German cars? In my younger day we all financed Fiestas, Saxos and Polos but after 3 years we owned them outright.

Having said that if you look after your prestige car and change it every 4-5 years max, you have a few years of owning it outright before having a decent sum for a newer model (year old max).

If you buy a car on finance, you can’t afford it. I am seeing a lot of 21/22 plate cars recently that have the sides dented in (or obvious accident damage) but the owners can’t afford the repairs on top of the finance cost.

Don't own it as its electric and pays for itself £300 a month as I do a lot of driving for work and electric rare is way cheaper than petrol.

The amount we spend on cars makes me sick

new Jaguar E pace- almost £600 PM
New BMW series 3- £300 PM

I'm a SHAM and my husband is a dentist. I do love the jag but it's an obscene amount to spend

We had an mpv as company car then bought it off the company when the lease expired, using savings.

other car is 20 year old tin can!

I drive a brand new 5-series hybrid BMW. Paid outright for it and added on a retry much all the bells and whistles (tell your son it’s an M-Sport, 20” alloys 😁)

Both my husband and I work in roles paying over £100k (finance, and professional services) and our household income is around £280-300k (depending on bonuses). We have a very high mortgage, but no other high costs.

Between us, we have about £25k annually in car allowances from work.

I spend a lot of the time on the road so like having a comfortable and reliable car.

At 22, I was driving a clapped-out Toyota. Tell your son to be patient.

I have an electric Volkswagen that would be around £50k outright, I have it on salary sacrifice when it was on special offer and my take home is reduced by £260 a month, including servicing, insurance and tyres/breakdown etc. This was a really good deal and I won’t be getting another as they are now up to £400 ish so will think about getting a Mini, though still electric.

Jaguar XF paid outright from jobs in finance for 20+ years.

At 22 I did not have a car, in fact I did not own a car until I was almost 30. I prioritised my (long) studies and my mortgage. It all paid off.

When I was 22 I couldn't afford a car. I do now drive a lovely car but that's come after 20 odd years of driving bangers, moving up the property and career ladder and even then it's a 5 year old premium brand not at brand new one on a loan. I imagine in 10 yrs time when my mortgage had been paid off and the kids have left home I could probably afford a brand new one but I wouldn't waste my money.

I always wonder the same.

We have a 3 year old Hyundai and a 12 year old Volvo. Both work full time in good jobs.

SIL has an Audi at 300 quid PER MONTH on lease. Not sure what to say really, they don't have two ha'pennys to rub together

When I took out the lease I have now I was a single mum to 2 children and had a total income including child maintenance of
roughly £3200pm and spent £400pm on a premium suv on a great £0 deposit lease deal. I rented at the time £775pm but still managed holidays, weekends away and meals out, days out and decent clothes.
People banging on about things on lease and ‘not owning things’ baffle me. If you regularly replace your car (5 years or less) and want brand new (so you have a warranty and peace of mind) this tends to be the much better option than buying and frankly if your always going to have a finance payment who cares is you own it? Tell him to have a look on money shake and compare the deals, not to have a specific car in mind but maybe a list of 10 he would have and keep his eye out for a good deal, they’re harder to come by at the minute but they definitely still come up, think there’s a decent Mercedes CLA deal on at the minute and engine isn’t huge so insurance isn’t too bad! I will always make sure I can pay my insurance in full though even if that means being skint for a month or two!

@Justisme We’re both lawyers.

My boyfriend has 2 expensive ones and changes every few years. He pays cash. He’s a CEO of a global company. He can buy whatever he likes but isn’t over extravagant other than having ‘nice’ cars every few years. I don’t know how people afford them thesedays, the prices are ridiculous. If I sold mine I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy it again if it was in a showroom 🤷‍♀️

Why waste your money on new flash cars? They only go down in value.
look at 80’s and even 90’s cars they have dropped in value but the survivors are now going up!
and you’ll turn more heads in a mk1 escort or an original mini than you will driving a new BMW.

Well... not entirely true.

My car is on finance because that suits me better. However, I also have enough in the bank to buy the same car several times over. I just don't want to spend 30k upfront on a depreciating asset. Overall, PCP works out cheaper for me, and I swap them after three years for a new model. But I can still afford to repair or replace it several times over. 🤷‍♀️

My mum died and I used my gift from her to buy a nice car.

tell him things aren’t always what they seem x

We bought a 1 year old family minivan (Peugeot Rifter) last year after spending 20 years driving absolute bangers - 3 kids and lots of camping so need something massive.
It was £23k and we borrowed it all, pay £300 a month off the loan. The debt makes me feel a bit sick, but it is nice not worrying about the next bit falling off when you're on the motorway, and it's so lovely to drive.

My friends have a 50k car and live at home

Conversations that never happened.

22 year old son- “hi mum can you post on mumsnet to find out how much money middle aged women earn and what jobs they have please? This will massively help me in my quest to get a new Volvo.”

lmaooo

60k income here, own business so car leased through that, currently an Audi Q5. For years we bought cars, but found the maintenance once they got over 4 or 5 years old became quite significant as we do quite high mileage. So changed to leased and really like it. New car every 3 to 4 years and very few maintenance issues to worry about. One of grown ups DC has a leased car (only 220 a month as not too flash a car). Other DC has a company BMW.

Everyone I’ve employed recently has been on at least £50k with an extra car allowance of £400/month.

We drive a 6 year old non flashy car, and use car allowance for other more important things. Household income around £80k

My husband works as a senior manager for a luxury car manufacturer, we subsequently have very expensive vehicles (£80k plus) as part of his package. We would usually get a brand new car every 4 months (based upon mileage) although with the shortage of new cars are currently keeping them for 18months.

We pay very little for very expensive cars.

I’m sure that he’ll change his priorities when he realises that they’re just metal, plastic and rubber that hopefully gets you from A to B.

I remeber thinking this at 22. I still think it at 59!

I get a car allowance of £500 per month, which I use to finance the car.