AIBU to feel angry about my husband's £1000 a month car?

[Tunaturner]

My husband has bought a car that costs £1000 a month. He does earn a lot more and drives a lot so I get he wants to be comfortable. But I think cars are a waste of money.
I don’t know why I feel so angry.

We have our own money and pay half the bills,
but to me the money would be better spent on other things.
if I just met him on a date and he said he has a car that was £1000 month I wouldn’t see him again as it’s distasteful.
am I being irrational? I feel controlling saying he shouldn’t be spending that much.

Yes and I know he’ll be bored of it in 6 months!!

Me too , it's very strange . So is spending £1000 a month on a status symbol .

In fact @Tunaturner quite a lot of what you say seems quite contradictory? You say he goes to the gym all the time and loves showing off and being flash on Instagram, but then you say he hasn’t got any hobbies except painting miniature models?

You also said you have ‘no idea’ what he earns but in the same post said he earns £120 and pays 40% into his pension.

And she hates him showing off but would prefer he bought a Porsche, and isn't materialistic but wants a new bathroom.

In fairness I don’t think £1000 a month on a car when you earn £120k is ridiculous money really. The money segment on the news a few weeks ago was saying people pay on average £350 a month for a car and if the average salary is around £35k thats 12% of their income, and that was deemed to be okay, £1000 a month would be 10% so actually a bit less than the average.

It sounds like a lot but in comparison to his income it isn’t really.

You have separate finances, this is his money, he can spend it on whatever he wants to and you would be controlling to claim otherwise.

You need to decide what you actual issue with this is OP. If it is reflective of different intrinsic values, you need to think about the relationship as a whole, but he’s not unreasonable for having a car he wants that he can afford with money that has nothing to do with you anyway.

I would feel like you do I think.

It would make me lose some respect for him as a person.

Depends on your salary and the scheme details etc but if I took the car allowance as cash I would pay 45% income tax and 2% NI on £500 a month so would only take home about £250.

instead I get car for the money and the tax I pay is 4% on the BIK.

so rather than lose £250 to HMRC I gain car with it. Makes sense to me

£1k a month = £12k a year, I've never owned a car that cost £12k and I used to drive 20k miles a year. The maximum speed limit in this country is 70 mph, if you're driving a Smart Car or a Ferrari. Men who drive expensive cars have them as penis substitutes.

I hear you. My partner has a lease car that costs £600 a month- really pisses me off! He can afford it, as a family we don’t go without, but I still think of all the things that money would be better spent on!

My stepson was spending 800 a month on a car I thought that was expensive enough!

I earn £300k a year before bonuses and have a 2013 ford bought outright in 2020. All the extra money goes on school fees, mortgage, and saving for the children’s university fees/ house deposits. The idea of spending £12k p/a on a car makes me feel a bit sweaty stressed.

What is costing 1,000? Is this car financing or a lease and if a lease does it include the tax, insurance, maintenance etc?

yeah I think part of me feels bad so thinks what he does do, then part of me feels mad and sees the parts that annoy me. Married life I guess.

You're getting a bit contradictory here @Tunaturner

One minute he's a tightarse, the next he's generous.

The info about his wage is quite muddled too - is it car allowance? Leased through work. Or is he taking £1k of his takehome pay and splashing that on a car. There's a big difference. Or is there a bit of reative writing here to make it seem worse than it is?

He's putting money away in a pension, spends minimally on himself by the sounds and yet he's got something nice and you begrudge it because it's not what you would have done? That doesn't seem fair.

I love that term.
I’m always sweaty stressed

The money itself sounds like a red herring. This sounds more like you have different values and priorities. Has that always been the case? Do you like who he is now? Do you love him? Do you have a future planned together? Do you agree what that looks like?

YANBU OP — never mind the affordability, it is just yuppie and cringe

There’s a lot of inverse snobbery on this thread.

Maybe he just really likes the car? It’s not vapid or ‘Instagrammy’ to have a nice car if you can afford one.

Also the notion of buying a shitty run around so you can spend money on improving hobbies is so very snobbish.

Let him have it but if he moans about the cost of anything ever again you can just reply, ‘You have a thousand pound a month car. We’re hardly on the breadline’, or, ‘We can afford a £1k a month car. We can afford a holiday/hot tub/Heinz beans’ etc.

With how you describe your finances and management of them, I think you might need to take a step back here.

If you pool finances, then it should have been a conversation, but you don't. He's saving significantly for retirement and you say you have a small mortgage. I expect after his pension extra, he's taking home 5k a month net.

Perhaps if you feel his money would be better spent on the house, there's a conversation to be had about a house maintenance pot you both save into and the same for vacations?

I understand you to a point. Especially when your parents have set a less showy example. But he sounds like he has the money. Maybe a good time to reassess how you agree big purchases?

Btw - cars are absolutely extortionate. Especially if you lease them on a high milage. A very normal family electric car would easily set you back £450 pm on 10,000 miles.

We drive 2 old cars despite being able to afford very fancy cars. But we use the money to invest and overpay our mortgage. We do also eat very well, live in a nice house and enjoy nice holidays.

Different priorities I guess.

If he can afford it then it isn’t a waste is it.

Agree. That's mad money to spend on a car on a salary of 120k. He's not a massively high earner if he has dependants and other outgoings like the rest of us. You need a proper talk about money.

You don’t know what your husband earns and don’t discuss big decision. Bizarre.

Ditto.