Does your car show your status?!

[Dibbydoos]

I was a BMW X3 for 7 years - a prowling beast of a thing, fast like heckers! I loved that car! But it's now retired and I didn't want another big SUV, so I bought from the same stable, a Mini Countryman and everyone is giving me stick! I keep getting with your money you could afford better etc etc.

It's jarring.

I blinking love this Mini. It drives like my BMW even the general controls - cruise, nav, wipers are the same.

Why are people so fixated on spending more money than you need?

Am I being unreasonable to not waste money on a flash car?

Volvo driver here and primarily because of their safety reputation once I'd had the DC. Always second hand and always looking to spend the least possible.

All I want from a car is that it works and is as sturdy as possible. Even if I have more disposable income in the future, I wouldn't spend any more than I currently do.

Thanks @recyclemeagain I will!!!

@BarelyLiterate I love your phrasing of all of this. I have an M4 convertible and I love and appreciate it so much!I don’t drive it for others, I drive it for ME!

I never bought either for status. - but you haven’t bought the mini, you are leasing it, completely different.

People always seem to look down on finance but I found PCP to be the best way of having a nearly new high spec car every three years. Kind of regretted it tbh when I bought the last one outright as was paying almost double per month then had the hassle of selling it and dealing with all the chancers and time wasters.

Yes. But who uses their cash to buy assets that depreciate?

Better to invest it so I can retire soon 😉

People may think I should be driving something more expensive given my job (Finance Director) and earnings (£££), but I couldn't care less. The way to keep money is not to spend it all on extra vim when good is good enough.

Indeed. Friend that was high up in a FTSE 100 company enjoyed trying out the company cars on offer for weekends trials (the 500SL AMG was quite something apparently) but still parked the wholly owned clunker bought cheap from the auctions in their executive spot each day.

You are correct, I should have said got the cars.

The 12yo BMW is mine the Mini will never be mine!

That's what friends were saying to me too. I've done a straight lease on the Mini though. I might look at PCP next time. 😉

According to another thread I am on, I am insufferably middle class, except i dont own a vehicle at the moment, and when i do, it will be a shitty little thing that runs me from a to b.

I am only considering purchasing one because i live in the middle of nowhere and am getting on in years.

Life is short, fucking status signifiers are old hat. We are living in a dying world and this desperate desire to 'up' ourselves is ruinous.

So you own the 12 yo BMW and have taken out a lease for a Mini?

Why?

It might show how much money you have but when someone has a flash car it can also look a bit showy off, depends what car though.

My husband drives a flash car because we can afford it, and he drives it to client appointments and it looks good to turn up in, plus it's a great reliable family car.

I drive a £500 car off eBay, I take the kids and the dogs to the beach in it, do the school run etc. my husband thinks I'm mad for not wanting something better, but I'm happy with what I've got. I don't want to spend £50k on a bloody car, neither do I want to be tied down with hefty monthly payments.
I plan on buying a motor home or Campervan soon because that's what's important to me not a flash car.

Because she doesn’t want to spend the money on a depreciating asset- would rather invest… she said so already. If she wants to drive a mini and have a Beamer in the garage then totally up to her!

If you have a 12 yr old car that you’ve had from new or nearly new then you’d stick with that, surely? Assuming that you’d kept up to date with servicing and ongoing maintenance. Especially if you liked driving it.

A lease car isn’t an investment. The monthly payments on that would cover running costs of an older car.

I think the very rich and the not so rich lease or have cars on PCP. The solid middle: doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc, buy them and keep them for several years.

Obviously the lease car isn’t an investment! Unless you’re into the classic cars I doubt any car really is!

I think she means she would rather take the money that might’ve been for a new car and invest it wisely in something else, to put towards retirement- have the mini on lease as it depreciates. Ownership of previous BMW not really relevant to OP’s question.

Ownership of the previous BMW is absolutely relevant if it’s just going to be stuck in a garage.

I’d say if you have a 12 yr old car that you own outright and that you’ve maintained and had already taken the depreciation hit, you’d be an idiot to take a lease car.

What will a lease deal be? £400 per month?

Best part of £5k per year covers a lot of costs on a car you already own as opposed to one you give back.

The original post was asking if a car shows status. So I’d still argue a BMW in a garage isn’t relevant to the OP’s question about her mini.

The BMW in the garage is only relevant to your tangent argument that it’s not cost effective. I don’t really understand the reasoning or financial benefit to the lease either, but people are free to do what they want with their money.

I can see that the OP said they loved the X3 but didn’t need something that big. Ironically, the X3 isn’t massively bigger than a Countryman when you look at dimensions.

From the OP they think that the X3 gave them status whereas the Mini doesn’t.

An X3 is not a status car. It’s not really cost effective to retire the X3 for an expensive lease deal that her family tells her is not a status car either.

If OP likes the Mini then great. Tell the family to do one.

But I’d still think that OP is wasting money on a lease deal. Better the devil you know.

But as you say, people can spend their money however they want.

our car alarms have gone off four times in the last half hour at the side of the house so I’m very happy for DHms posh car and it’s cameras right now. Less so for the very loud alarm music which will have just woken all our neighbours.

Totally agree with all of what you’ve said!

There's certainly a mindset that says fancy car =successful but people measure success in different ways. My car looks like what it is - a tool for transporting people animals and stuff from place to place. Is it clean nope is it smelly yep. I honestly don't have time for anyone who looks at something so extraneous and uses it to measure my worth as a human being.

It does I presume, it shows our love of invisibility gadgets as we don't have one, no idea what that shows really

No-one has ever commented on the car I drive 😳 I can't imagine why they would. It's a 10 year old Focus, does the job, that's all I require. I dread it dying, it's much nicer to drive than our old car.

I hate the massive cars you get nowadays, no idea why anyone needs anything so big. They make it difficult to park and you can't see around them.

It depends why you’ve got the ‘flash car’ doesn’t it?

I work in London but live in rural East Sussex and need a 4x4 to get anywhere in winter (icy country lanes, hills etc). Neighbours were snowed in for a week Christmas just gone as they only have small cars.

I constantly get stick about having a ‘flash car’ as all my colleagues have ford fiestas or polos, but they seem to miss the part where, if I didn’t have the ‘flash Volvo’ I’d be stranded whenever it was icy or snowy. So having a good 4x4 when I live in a small semi makes sense…

So, YABU. Equally, YANBU as lots of people have the same car as me and live in places where they definitely do need it…looking at you Sevenoaks!