To be annoyed at DH for wanting finances car?

[hippygirllucky]

DH has a car he bought 2 years ago, 2014 model. Runs fine, the air con has needed regassing but otherwise good.

Today he's announced that he's going to trade his car in for a much bigger car on finance. We have 1 DD with no plans for another at the moment and the only place he really drives regularly is 5 minutes to work and back. The total cost for new car is £41000 (seems an eye watering amount to me!)... it's not even a brand new car, it's an ex showroom car. He's already decided. We have about £5k in savings. He intends on trading in his old car against it and making almost £400 a month payments, with a £14000 lump sum payment at the end of 4 years.

AIBU for hitting the roof when he told me this? He seems to think £400 a month is nothing (it's half our mortgage payment!) and hasn't even seemed to start thinking about where the £14000 at the end is going to come from (he just said "I'll save up!"). We can technically afford it, if we make compromises... it's just such a pointless expense when he has a perfectly good car. He says he will pay for it entirely out of his salary but my argument is that this WILL affect me and DD. Do you think I'm being too controlling? Would you be upset or would you say "your decision"? He seems to think I'm being overly controlling.

You are totally correct. This is sheer lunacy. It sounds like you have a sensible attitude to money and your husband does not. This is going to be a bigger issue going forward so if you cannot get him to listen now,.be careful.

This mania for huge status cars amongst people who have no spare money is utterly nuts

It's nit nuts though is it, it's very human. Obviously the billionaire driving the banger doesn't care what people think because he's a billionaire!

The only person I know who ever spent money like that on a car was my old cleaner... I move in a middle class professional sphere and the most anyone else I know has ever spent on a car was 12k!

You seem a little sheltered tbh. Plenty of mc people have expensive cars.

There's nothing inherently wrong about wanting to spend money on a car, people like different things. I'm not interested in cars so keep the budget low but my shoe spends/eating out makes up for it. However it needs to be affordable and a joint decision

I would feel the same as you about him buying this car. The reality is that your both working, and have a baby.
Between a car loan of £400 pm and saving another £14,000 for 4 years your probably looking at payment of £790pm. That far to much in your current circumstances when you only have £5000 in savings and their is a col crises also. What happens if you have a large unexpected expense? What happens if either of you lost your jobs or you're work hours were cut?
Show him what Dave Ramsey says about car payments and about savings and building wealth.

Rather than take on debit you need to build up your savings and start to bit aside each weed/month for a holiday next year.

If you had £400 pm to put towards building up your savings, then to overpay your mortgage and put more into your pensions long term you end up far better off.

Gotta love Mumsnet to never fail to minimise huge amounts of money that are far beyond the experience of most people with examples that only apply if you never leave a tiny bubble.

'Most people I know spend far more than £40k on a car'.

See also '£50k isn't much of a salary, I earned more than that as a graduate trainee in 2001'

and 'I don't know anyone who pays less than £2k a month for their mortgage'

etc etc

It might be that the OP's DH has a car allowance from work (hasn't said) meaning he would have to use that on a car with conditions on the age and type and be expected to go to other places on business as this is tied into both mine and DH's. Our taxes allowances virtually cover the monthly car expenses however it still was discussed before either car was bought and we do not have to pay the end bubble payment - we hand the car back.
I'm also not that far from my company office but my out of hours commitments make it impossible for me walk or ride a bike, I simply don't have the time nor the ability to transport everything when I need to.

(Misses point of thread) - if it only takes 5 mins to drive to work that’s an absolute maximum of 5 miles (at 60mph), so he should be cycling (5 miles) or walking (anything up to 2 miles), especially as you also say you live in a city!

@Swrigh1234

I must admit I was thinking this, although I do think a car needs to be a joint purchase, I can’t get outraged at £400 a month without knowing what the joint income is. I have been thinking I would like to change my car soon, I have had it nine years and there are some things I would like in a car that it doesn’t have. I hope my husband will be open to considering it and won’t just refuse to consider it (we consider our money as out and I won’t do it without his agreement).

If it’s PCP just swap at the end of the term

If it's a 5 minute drive in a city, it's highly likely it's significantly less than 5 miles.

The OP hasn't said anything about him travelling for work or receiving a car allowance, so unlikely to be relevant.

She's also said that they can only afford it if they make compromises and has specifically mentioned that they won't be able to afford a holiday if he gets this car, which he doesn't need as he has a perfectly decent car already.

They also only have £5k in savings which, while more than a lot of people, won't go very far if they need to do work on the house, suffer job loss, etc.

He's basically proposing to spend the family's holiday budget and then some on his own wants.

So he doesn't actually need a car

He has a functioning car

He wants to blow money he doesn't actually have on a very expensive car

Why not tell him - ah sorry you want to do that but I have just signed up for music classes at 150 a month , another 50 a month for orchestra , and I need 10000 for a decent instrument so I don't think we'll have the spare cash you want

Op you definitely need to reframe this. It's not 400 a month it's at least double that due to the sums involved. And the insurance, tax, repairs on top etc.

It sounds like a car is a ridiculous luxury did to his commute - I could understand if rural without public transport but he's already acting ridiculously.

Your DH sounds like a teen.
Extremely unattractive in an actual partner.

If you're on different wavelengths financially either you need to accept a life of having to be the only adult (fuck that), change him (virtually impossible, waste of energy) or split.

I've had a relative in your position and it wound her down over the years, exhausted. She stuck around and 20 years later she's still in dread at the end of every shift what the fuck her loser child husband has bought while she's been out working and how much money he's pissed away on toys. Lunacy.

Same thing happened to me a few years ago, I was absolutely raging! However, I am so grateful for that car now. Once it was paid off a couple of years ago it's not cost us hardy anything to maintain, apart from new tires. Its flown through it's MOT's and in hindsight my husband made the right decision. Yes, it was a pain in the arse to pay the finance but it is saving us money now and still has years of use left in it.

I agree. Some people are supremely naive about what people can and do spend on cars. I have friends with £300k cars, investment cars kept in bubbles etc.

£41k isn’t obscene, if you can afford it, which this family clearly cannot. He’s being absurd and extremely selfish.

Yeah this.
Play him at his own game.
New car - great. You want the family to go on 5* AI to Mexico next summer so it's only fair that £600 of your salary goes straight towards the holidays each month. Does that mean household bills can't be paid - too bad you thought it was important that everyone gets what they want cars, holidays etc.

Selfish men like this can only do what they want if the other partner has no holidays or desires of their own. Unless he earns loads of course, but then I doubt you would only have £5k in savings and a pretty modest mortgage.

His work is 5mins away and he drives?

No wonder the planet is doomed.

You don't have to pay the lump sum at the end. You can also decide to hand the car back so essentially renting it for a few years.

It is controlling and if a woman came on here and said her husband had asked her to transfer 12k to him and do a spreadsheet budget so she could spent her own wages you would be saying divorce the controlling bastard!

Also where has OP said she can’t afford to put the heating on and her children are freezing? Or have you made that up? Classic mumsnet

In a marriage there is no such thing as your own wages to spend how you like

Finances are legally at least shared for the good of the whole household

Someone spending lots without care for how it impacts the others has places OP in a hard place and it's not controlling it's being bloody practical and sensible

Still don’t agree, I wouldn’t personally ask my partner to transfer money to me, but if money was that tight I would expect him to show in the family budget that it’s affordable so it can be considered properly, but my DH would never want this, because we both feel the same way about unnecessary finance.

she hasn’t said she can’t afford the heating on, but who knows what’s going to happen by winter in the current economic climate, if they’re strapped for cash now, it’s not going to be any more affordable come winter time..

it’s not a case of ‘let people do what makes them happy’ when their happiness is such a selfish pursuit, there could be a compromise here if he wanted a newer car, but you don’t seem to be considering the impact on the rest of the family at all, he’s not a single man.

And what does he do for a car then? He's likely got no savings after paying £400 pm for 3 years. It's a bit of a risk to assume he'll suddenly decide he doesn't need to drive to work.

Exactly. I don't see what the fuss is about.
@hippygirllucky he doesn't have to save £409 a month for the balloon payment. Just hand the car back at the end of the term

He gets another new car and pays the monthly payment for that.
Most of the people in my workplace do this 🤷

He wants a status symbol!

And he clearly could have savings if he is handing the car back because that means he doesn't need to save to pay the lump sum. Which is his current plan.