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!

self employed own business. Could afford a flash car. But we like to buy cash and just cannot bring ourselves to spend 80k on a depreciating asset. Dh drives a 14 year old Audi which he bought pre kids and was his "fast car in my 30's I can see marriage and kids approaching" panic. I drive a Ford Fiesta!

Dh would love a Range Rover but we won't do that till the kids are out of education. I'm happy with the Ford fiesta and would rather spend money on anything but cars.

To be fair he'd probably love that :)

NC for this but I’ve always been into my cars and it takes a while to get to the stage where you’re driving what you want

at 22 I was just out of uni and driving a metro

now I’m late 40s and have a few cars. Porsche, Maserati, have had some older classics too.

take your time, it’ll come. Buy used. My 911 was far less than a new BMW. 1k a month on a brand new car is mental, all it does is depreciate.

DH could get one through work scheme for £500 a month but we would miss that!

Loads of young people where I live drive these cars - it's an Asian area, lots of people live at home until they're married or even afterwards, parents pay for all basic bills so they can spend their wages on designer clothes and cars if they want to.

Fair play I say! I could just about afford a premium car on finance (earn £40k) but me and DH prefer to spend our disposable income on holidays. It's definitely a question of priorities.

There’s the cost of the car and the cost of keeping it on the road…MOT, service, insurance etc - probably £3k a year.we earn about £300k between us and have one car and a few push bikes. Car is second hand discovery. Previous car was a 15 year old VW. Bought for cash.

Leased or on tick

Wow I don't view the cars you mentioned as posh cars. I'd never ever want any of them. Each to their own I suppose.

We’ve just ordered a new BMW suv and buying outright, using mostly savings with a very small loan that we will pay back within a few months.

DH is a petrolhead & has spent many long months working out the best deal and Car for our family.

We are a one wage family & opted for a car with a price sitting just below the government scam £500 yr tax bracket!!! (Don’t get me started!).

His job - head of engineering type role and he does get an annual car allowance but not a company car.

Your ds is only 22 - good to have aspirations but at that age, the insurance alone on any car isn’t going to be cheap, let alone the more flashy ones!

Being part of a couple makes all the difference! I couldn't afford a banger at 22, let alone a decent car. Insurance also gets cheaper as you get older (providing nothing no claims).

Partner and I have combined income of about £110k, drive a bmw that we got on PCP for £630 a month for 4 years and then we paid the balloon payment to keep the car at the end.

I have £200k worth of cars parked on my drive. I pay cash for them and hold onto them for around 5 years. I earn enough to afford it and I'm mortgage free so that helps too as I have more disposable income.

Your DS needs to be patient and play the long game. At 22 I drove a £1000 honda. There followed a series of sensible second hand Fords. I didn't buy a premium brand new car until I was 40 and could afford to pay cash. Lawyer. Could probably meet the affordability criteria to buy something really very bling on finance now but I much prefer to invest my spare income and will drive current premium brand car until it's no longer economical to run when it will be replaced by something in £50k range for cash. Plus where I live in London, cars are CONSTANTLY being stolen. Brand new Range Rovers seem to only last about a week on our street.

We have a Tesla and a Mercedes. Household income of £250k

we are 45 with a joint income of a bit over 100k. Small mortgage though
just ordered our first ever (joint) posh car (though not that posh, around 55k) which we will pay for outright due to a combination of savings/inheritance and dh bonus.
never previously occured to us to buy a brand new car, we bought nearly new and just ran them for years

i Don’t think your ds needs to worry. At 22 any kind of vehicle that goes is great.

Sorry to hijack the thread. I’m in the market for a new car but need some advice…
I’m after a top of the range electric. Maybe Audi, Tesla or similar. Midnight blue. I’m looking to spend between £90-100K but could go more depending on fixtures and interiors.
So my question is: Does anyone have any idea where I could get that kind of money?

@FormAnOrderlyQueue I know someone earning 500k in law, the equity partners earn 1.5m

Oh I do know lots of people who lease expensive cars, happy to put aside a very big percentage of their monthly outgoings on a nice car (each to their own…) Then change it every 2 or 3 years. Amount they spend is almost constant so it’s affordable month by month but must cost a fortune over a lifetime! But they choose to prioritise having a new, fancy car.

Partner and I have combined income of about £110k, drive a bmw that we got on PCP for £630 a month for 4 years and then we paid the balloon payment to keep the car at the end.

We earn similar & no way could we afford £630 a month for a car. And although our mortgage is big it's far cheaper then renting something smaller.

I paid £34k for my new Mercedes coupe in 2018. I part exchanged my old car, had savings and got a small loan (which is paid off now). I used to pay £320 a month for the loan. I change my cars every 7 years and hate pcp loans.
You can work out how much the car dealerships and the manufacturers make out of just one car. Have fun doing that!

Relative used to work for Land Rover. Salary of approx 60k pa but his cars were company Range Rovers 2.5 Sport or the V8 Vogue. Whatever they had that year. He got a deal through the company and changed every year. When he retired he bought a Ford.

Me and my partner share our Audi A6 (he had a work vehicle so doesn't need the car in the week). We bought it in 2018 for 40k and was paying £450 a month until our PCP came to an end in May. We then had to pay £18k for us to own it out right.

I will never use PCP again, I was very stupid and naive when we took the car on, I didn't know what I was signing up to. I dread when we have to get a new car.

Our household income is 70k, I work in admin and my partner is a supervisor in the construction industry but works self employed.

We purchased a Tesla recently to replace our 15 year old car. It was less than 10% of our joint income (before tax) and we paid cash. We both work in professional services.

I earn 100k and catch the bus!

Sorry OP but your DS is being slightly naive. You don't need to be loaded to drive a new car but just have enough for the monthly payments.

Things have changed recently due to the economic meltdown, but for a while, German manufacturers have been flooding the market with cheap PCP deals to get people on the never ending merry-go-round.

For a few hundred quid, you can get a base 1 series/A Class/A3 and impress the neighbours. But it's a mugs game and one people can't resist. Once in, it's very hard to get out, due to the way they work.

The best thing you can do is to get your DS to avoid like the plague and just buy a used car for a lot less. If she must finance, a loan is preferable and the cheapest way (in terms of interest paid). Stay away from dealership finance unless it's zero % or very favourable.