How do people afford £30k-£60k cars with normal jobs?

motorguy

The whole "some people PCP or lease cars" and "some people finance things they cant afford and get up to their eyeballs in debt" seems to merge in to the minds of the hard of thinking as "people who PCP or lease cars cant afford them and are up to their eyeballs in debt"

Banal.

Lets not forget, if buying a new car isnt made palatable, then noone buys new, which means there are few used cars which will push used prices UP.

I'm very happy with the deal i got on my year old Passat - no doubt made possible by the sheer numbers of the things available used because of a buoyant lease / PCP / rental market.

Cornucopia

Exactly. MSE is not just about how to save the maximum amount of cash, but is also about "how to spend it well". The car-buying experience can be complicated and challenging (especially for the unwary) but I don't believe that Leases/PCPs present a particular hazard.

There's a further, practical detail that I encountered when I bought my present car. That is that because of various new car incentives, including subsidised interest rates, the apparent or monthly costs of buying new on PCP or renting on Lease can be very similar to the monthly costs of buying at 2-3 years old (and for most models, the warranty will be on the wane by then).

Let's take what should be a favourable example because of its 7 year warranty: the Kia Sportage.

I can lease a Kia Sportage 1.7CRDi ISG1 for 9+35 @ c£170 with 8k miles

Or

I can buy a 2013 1.7CRDi ISG1 with 38000 miles on it, for £163pm and £1050 deposit, and that's still a 42 month PCP with a £5k balloon payment and an 8k miles annual limit.

So, there's £10pm to save and £700 of initial payment - and that's on a car with a 7 year warranty. (In my experience, my new car was cheaper than the second-hand alternative I was considering - mainly down to the difference between 9.9% APR(used) vs. 0%(new)).

Stoke

motorguy wrote: »

however i can see why it may work for some people. I think they call it "being objective"?

Well its sad that you have to scrutinise and judge your colleagues in such a way, just to justify your own life choices.

Again, you seem to have intimate knowledge of all your colleagues finances, but i'd suggest if they truly are on a lowly wage, then they'd just get another dead end job in a week or two and continue. Not how i'd chose to lead my life, but redundancy does not equal financial ruin for anyone with even a tiny amount of get up and go and half a brain.

I have a perfectly objective view..... If you can realistically afford it, buy a new car, by all means.

Of course buying, leasing, PCP'ing a car works for some people..... so long as those people manage their finances correctly and can genuinely afford, but I am talking about a disproportionate number of young people however, who simply don't manage their finances correctly and are not being given proper financial advice. They end up racking up large credit card bills, agreeing to take finance out on a car, items on finance etc.... they're not thinking about what's around the corner.

I don't need to justify my lifestyle choices. I am on the extreme end of the ownership spectrum. I didn't have to buy a £200 car. I was very close to spending 2 grand on a Focus. The Demio just turned up at the right time. That said, I fail to see how someone earning say 21 grand a year, renting a place, is in a good place to buy a brand new Mini for example, especially when you can get a lovely old one for pennies these days. Ultimately, it's not my money, thank !!!!.... and they're not my kids, so I don't need to bail them out when !!!! hits the fan.

Do I have intimate knowledge of my colleagues finances? Of course not. I am generalising somewhat. There will be one or two who perhaps received a large inheritance or received payoff due to an injury or something... however, there is also a decent number who are not in that situation and are simply not forward thinking. I am not saying they're on a lowly wage. Nobody where I work earns minimum wage, it's not that kind of place, but just because you earn more than minimum wage, doesn't mean, all things considered you're in a really great place to buy a brand new motor. Furthermore, none of them are in dead end jobs.... if they were made redundant, they wouldn't find an equivalent job to what they're doing now without putting effort in to circulate CV's and they certainly wouldn't find the same pay easily. I don't work in Greggs you know? Nobody works where I work unless they have a 2:1 or higher from a good University (Excluding the cleaners perhaps).

Redundancy does equal ruin if you can't sustain yourself for, I would say, at least a month, or maybe two. If I lost my job, I would expect to be hired in about 1 month, but I am in a senior position and have 7 years experience in my role. I'm talking about the juniors who have just left university with a bag load of debt and it's often harder for grads in the field I work in to find a job. No solid experience, no job offers. We've even had people lately sending in CV's offering to work for free for work experience. Next you'll be telling me they should go out and buy a new Honda Civic to get them to work every day.

scd3scd4

motorguy wrote: »

So you bought the new car in the most cost effective way for you?

Yet you seem to have an issue when others do that for themselves, based on the options they have at the time?

Why would I have an issue with what a stranger does on a forum. We are having a debate about the pros and cons. We are explaining the answer the OP raised.How do people afford £30k-£60k cars with normal jobs? No more. No one cares what anyone else is doing..... yet you are getting all excited and went off in a huff to eat some bread and Jam.....

scd3scd4

motorguy wrote: »

For the record, the Passat is just my means to get me up and down to the airport or to client site - the mileage of which i charge back against my limited company. Our main car is our Mercedes A45 AMG. The Passat is just the grunt that lies at the airport and does dump runs, shopping runs, etc.

And I am what..........lmao..........yes you are considerably richer than meeee..............;-]

"This time next year, Rodders, we will be millionaires!" lol

scd3scd4

motorguy wrote: »

Why do you even remotely care? What does it really matter what your colleagues do with their money? Why this "suspicion" about everyone else they "cant really afford it"?

You manage to get the arsx end of most posts don't you. Who said I cared. He is a friend. Who said I was suspicious. I said he was clever, no one said he could not afford it. Best you have a nice lay down you are getting all confused.

How silly we all are, debating things on a forum!! lol

Cornucopia

Stoke wrote: »

That said, I fail to see how someone earning say 21 grand a year, renting a place, is in a good place to buy a brand new Mini for example...

Currently on offer: £173pm, £1237 downpayment, 4 year lease, 8k miles pa.

Mini 1.5 Cooper (Chili)

scaredofdebt

Lad where I work who is mid 20s on about £25k bought a nearly new Audi A6 cost around £30k.

Lives with his parents.

It's about priorities and the state of the economy, he claims he cannot afford a mortgage.

Strider590

scaredofdebt wrote: »

Lad where I work who is mid 20s on about £25k bought a nearly new Audi A6 cost around £30k.

Lives with his parents.

It's about priorities and the state of the economy, he claims he cannot afford a mortgage.

Sounds like my mate, at 35 living with parents, had a used Mercedes, then a new Audi A4 but couldn't afford a deposit on a house OR a mortgage.
When he realised the car wasn't helping, he got rid of it, bought an old Fosus, saved some money and finally got his own place at 38yrs old.

scd3scd4

For many many years I have had two cars. One new the wife drives and the other a skip I get from the auction or old friends and family cast offs to get to work and back. I cycle now.

The second car was nothing more than a work horse for the 35 miles a day. I parked it anywhere, never cared about the trolleys that hit it, drove it into the ground and just had 3rd party insurance on it.

Its liberating never caring what happens to it. One old banger lasted for 7 years. The worse I treated it the more reliably it got. Never let me down other than one occasion because of a us battery.