cost of car -v- salary

Astaroth

I am sure it is not a simple calculation as clearly the higher your salary the greater proportion you have as disposable income.

That said and done though.... what proportion of your annual salary would you think is reasonable to spend on a car -v- its sale price?

highguyuk

Hmmm, an interesting post!

As has been said it a couple of posts recently, it depends what you think of your car. Some people like to run an older car into the ground and move onto another one when something goes wrong. It is just a means of A - B.

Some people take pride in the car, want good performance and good looks.

If you have high debts, then maybe the % reasonable to spend on a car would be v.low - if at all. Maybe you have lots of income and low/no debt, but spend your income on other things such as lots of fancy holidays.

So all in all, not sure you can answer this one! lol.

Astaroth

Which is what I somewhat thought - but thinking of getting a new car (next year once I have cleared all my CCs but I like planning ahead on large purchases) and been trying to work out what is a "good" car for me to get....

Problem is we get good deals on leasing certain makes of vehicle from work (most noticably Mercs) and looking at the per month cost I could afford a SLK 280 (though it would damage my ideas of saving money) but then when I consider what the OTR price of about £32,000 is against my salary it seems a silly amount to be spending on a car.... hence the question of what other people think is a sensible price to pay for a car against their salary

K9cuddles

Hi All,

Just to add to this post please bare in mind running costs!! I brought a car (on finance) that was more then my annual salary (I was aware of all the implications). I live and die my "budget spreadsheet" and what I've realised is though my monthly repayment is about £310... if I pro-rota'ed petrol, service, insurance, road tax etc.. I actually spend another £340 a month aswell! So to pay and maintain my car that's £650!! Which I'm sure most would agree is alot of $$$!!

tomstickland

I've not had a car that cost more than £1200 in 10 years of driving, and I love driving. There are hordes of great driver's cars out there for silly money. Since I paid cash outright for my car it costs me nothing per month except around £150 in fuel, £40 in maintenance (guess) and about £40 in tyre wear. That's still 10% of my monthly income (excluding Ebay and matched betting income).

Astaroth

K9cuddles wrote:

Just to add to this post please bare in mind running costs!!

Thankfully our company leasing scheme includes everything other than the fuel in the price (insurance, servicing, breakdown, tax, etc) and given that a fair proportion of my miles are business but as it isnt a company car I can still get the 40p/mile for the first 10,000 miles there will effectively be no running costs to me (other than a puncture or accident)