Keep it or sell it? what would you do in my position

lbahrani

racing_blue wrote: »

Is this about the car? Suggest look at the car as a monthly expense.

Depreciation (25% per year = 2% per month = £500 per month)
Cost of finance (interest) ???
Fuel
Tax
Insurance
Servicing

Are you happy with that expenditure? If yes keep. If no get rid and maybe get something more frugal.

I would say you are in a good place though. You have a fully paid off house, a nice car, and presumably a whole lot of human capital as you are 36 years old. You can live off one income. This means you can save your fiance's income, minus debt repayments (do I have that right?). You made the decision about the car when you bought it. What drove that decision? Has anything changed?

Many thanks for all your replies guys. Effectively, i have the following options available to me.

Option A.
Postpone our Wedding and use funds readily available to reduce debt to £-3000.00 immediately and keep the car.

Option B.
Sell car now, pay off debt and use difference to buy something more practical?

NB. I would rather not have an Audi S3 when a facelift or new S3 model is announced as I am unable to continously plough money into having the latest model. If i cant have the new one i'd rather not one at all if that makes sense.
At present i am sacrificing £300 p/m to service and repay the debt for the sake of a car?

Can someone please bring me back down to Earth we a heavy bump!

Many thanks again, you've all been most helpful

L

racing_blue

lbahrani wrote: »

At present i am sacrificing £300 p/m to service and repay the debt for the sake of a car?

That £300 p/m is a red herring. You have said that the cost of interest will be £1157.89 over 4 years, which if correct is a little under £25 per month. So the cost of finance is not a big deal in this case.

The much bigger deal is depreciation. I just looked at Audi leasing to get a feel for this. The example is a S SE 2.0 TFSI Quattro, which looks like a very fine car I must say. The retail cash price is £30,980. If I wanted to buy one using Audi PCP Solutions, if would cost me £3098 plus 35x£427.70 plus a final payment of £16,500.55

This optional final payment is similar to the projected value of that car after 3 years. So I think I can get a feel for the real cost of depreciation by subtracting this from the retail cash price. It is going to cost about £14,500 over the three year period, call it £5K per year, or £400 per month. No matter how I structure loan repayments, that's going to be the starting point for the cost of having it sitting on my drive.

racing_blue

Add on that interest payment of £25 per month, insurance, cost of maintenance, fuel and tax and you have your monthly spend.

Now you may be happy with that. Although it sounds like your new car itch could be an expensive one to keep scratching.

We bought a new car once, but these days tend to look for something about 3 years old, under 30K miles, drive for 5 years. Rinse and repeat. We have a people carrier and a smaller car & the total cost of running both is about £5k per year. That's everything. Still a lot of money to spend on cars, but the right spot on the curve for us.

duchy

You know the answer..... you're just hoping someone will come up with a reason that will justify you NOT selling it !

Sometimes being a grown up sucks!

If the car is a bigger priority to you than your fiancee then be honest with her and tell her so and postone the wedding - but if she is more important to you than an "appliance" then it's a no brainer. The person you intend to spend the rest of your life with versus a piece of machinary that will be around for a few years only.

If you seriously can't decide if your relationship (and maybe your child? You said you have two people to look after?) is more important than a consumer product -then best you tell her and let her decide if that's the kind of man she wants to spend the rest of her life with -always coming second to the latest boy toy.

The money you save by been debt free can be used to improve all of your lives and to make memories together- For me that's worth more than a car which is simply something to get from A to B and I'd be very dissapointed that I was considering spending my life with a man whose ego put that before me and my child. The only point in having a car like that is to turn the heads of other overgrown boys who see a car as a sign of manhood - Most women (not girls) are looking for a man with other qualities of manliness !

If I thought my fiance was even considering postponing our wedding just because he wanted a flash car - I'd be seriously re-evaluating if I wanted to stay with him let alone marry him. The fact he was asking other people rather than the two of us discussing it and weighing up our options together would be a further nail in the coffin of our relationship though.

jackieblack

duchy wrote: »

You know the answer..... you're just hoping someone will come up with a reason that will justify you NOT selling it !

I agree
No car is worth postponing a wedding for!

chesky

...... Effectively, I have the following options available to me ......

Jeez, not if you were my fianc! you wouldn't. Does she not get an equal say in the relationship's finances?

kerri_gt

It's a car, you've had some fun driving it but right now what you get from selling it would make a big diff to your current situation. And you've already said you won't want it when the next facelift is released - at which point the value of yours will likely drop considerably.

Sell it, buy something more within your current financial situation and use it to make some happy memories..I mean days out with the family and the like!

If you need some more persuasion, have a read of this -

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3043858/world-changing-ideas/the-science-of-why-you-should-spend-your-money-on-experiences-not-thing

rockm87

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown-like-car-habit/

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/28/what-does-your-work-truck-say-about-you/

You need some Mr Money Mustache in your life.

lbahrani

Well then, an interesting couple of days.

After obtaining people's constructive and helpful opinions on here and speaking with a couple of very close inspirational friends i have managed to trade the Audi in for something that my fiance liked, cheaper and more within our means.

So come next Friday 'The Debt' will be as follows: -

£13,887.08 - £8,500.00 (Payment to me buy Car Dealer)

= £5387.08 Debt remains (3.9% APR)

Feeling somewhat lighter alreadly and more importantly a great sense of clarity after reading some of your posts about life and materials.

Now what to do about the remaining £5387.08?

I still have the £3622.88 in an ISA for emergencies. A family member holds the money for the wedding which is going ahead next Autumn so that cannot and will not be a consideration.

Our income remains the same where mine is used for living and bills and my fiance's for Savings = £907.91 (4 weekly)

Some practical and managable solutions would be greatly appreciated and thank you all again.

L

dobbollah

use the £907.91 a month to pay it off...?