First Steps to Solvency

alt80

@RelievedSheff Neither do I but pretty tempted today might make me forget about losing my car. Not going to but sent wife to her mum’s.

Your hol sounds brilliant - I think you can have almost just as good time on a low budget on holiday as spending a lot tbf. Done both in the past, not always had extravagant holidays and enjoyed the driving hols to France or in UK or island hopping in Greece just as much. You’re doing amazing with the debts. 

@theoretica all are covered.

Andyjflet

RelievedSheff said:

alt80 said:

Well aware this probably sounds bonkers but just ran the figures could swap the BM for a Vantage and just have enough to live on including paying cards at current rate / fuel it / maintain it. If we binned the school that’d be £1k/m could split between overpaying the cards and maybe having a holiday. Once the cards were gone I’d have just about enough time to save up for a deposit on a new car or refinance the balloons. 

Obviously realise I can’t live my life in a deficit every month so will have to see how the next few months are on the reduced budget. Appreciate I should probably stick with the BM and overpay the cards, get those gone and buy the AM but this is so tempting and the deal is unbelievable tbh. 

I thought you had made progress but clearly not☹

This is a disappointing read!

Agreed, I dont really get it, one minute you are keen on reducing your outgoings and debt levels, the next minute you are sad that you VT's the Jag, which was unreliable by the way, and looking to buy a new RR.
I sold an expensive car today to a customer, cash, thats a guy who didnt have to worry about monthly payments and didn't care about depreciation. £129k, done. 
I see them all day every day, car payment wombles, its laughable sometimes it really is. 

Andyjflet

BTW, you cant borrow your way out of debt. 

alt80

@Andyjflet As I said to someone else I quite clearly don’t have £100k+ lying around. Would I buy my cars with cash if I had spare money and no plan for the cash which would beat the interest? Of course I would.

It was an ftype with a supercharged V8 of course it was unreliable lol I never thought it’d match the pinnacle of Teutonic engineering, it’s a Jag screwed together by a few Brummies in a large shed just outside Castle Bromwich. I’m not foolish enough to think it’d be as reliable as an R8 or similar.

alt80

Andyjflet said:

BTW, you cant borrow your way out of debt. 

I realise this. The idea behind renewing the RR is to delay the balloon and not wind up refinancing a four year old car for another four/five years. Left it too late to save enough to pay the entire £48.5k balloon.

ryanm8655

I get being a car man, don’t really get spunking  money away on brand new cars, on poor finance deals and spending close to half your income on them. That’s the mad part.

If you’re going to have nice cars, there are cheaper ways to do it (e.g. buy something that isn’t brand new and going to depreciate instantly). Also when in masses of debt you do have to make sacrifices. You already are but there is a lot more to come if you don’t want to be back here in a few years time in the same boat or worse, which you’ve already done once by taking money out of the business to clear debt.

I’m guessing it’s just a form of procrastination and trying to avoid the stress/reality of it all. Rather than an actual plan but I’d try and use the debt clearance as procrastination. Once those cards are gone you’ll have more room to expand your income and put yourself in a better position to have a toy car for weekends. 

Even if I was debt free and in your position I wouldn’t be leasing an Aston at that APR. Just !!!!!! money away. Might as well buy one that’s a few years old on finance, imagine the APR would be no worse... As a compromise, something older and cheaper like a 997 until you can afford something newer/cooler. But this is all hypothetical. You’ve got the BMW for a while yet and the Range Rover. I’d not think about the money you’ve wasted, it’s a sunk cost, akin to chasing your losses in the casino. 

Until I read how much you were spending on the Range Rover I had no idea they were so expensive and never looked at one and thought wow, what a car, they must be loaded driving that. They’re nice cars but I wouldn’t be dragging out my debt to have one. I’d rather have something cheaper and spend the money on the fun car.

TheAble

alt80 said:

@enthusiasticsaver well I very clearly don’t have £113k cash lying about or I wouldn’t have five figures of card debt a load of finance outstanding on the other two cars and need to remo my home in a couple of years to give back money to my BTLs. Probably won’t have a marriage either if I buy it lol.

Yes, these are several good reasons why you should not be doing it. As I mentioned in a previous post, it's only really multi millionaires with no debt who should be considering purchasing £100k+ vehicles - they can pay for it in cash and it's not going to make an impact on their financial security. 

enthusiasticsaver

alt80 said:

@enthusiasticsaver well I very clearly don’t have £113k cash lying about or I wouldn’t have five figures of card debt a load of finance outstanding on the other two cars and need to remo my home in a couple of years to give back money to my BTLs. 

Well obviously not, that was not the point of my post. It was to demonstrate that financially it is not a good deal especially as you have to pay 32p per mile if the annual mileage exceeds 6000. 

strawb_shortcake

@annabanana82 the cars are more than a hobby - I do need to drive for work. 

Think your missing my point, no one needs over £100k debt on cars to get to work. You justify it because it's your vice like an alcoholic justifies another drink.
You keep mentioning getting an AM whilst paying down your debt. 24 hours ago you thought you might be able to get help with school fees - can you not see how ludicrous that comes across to others? I quite expect you to have one on your drive by next Spring. 
I really think you need to try and get some perspective and think about how you would advise someone in a similar position.

alt80

My wife’s preference is for us to take the hit on the Range Rover (temporarily put the card balances up) and get another car through the business - catch is for a business contract hire to not end up with me paying massive BIK payments it’d have to be a hybrid Vogue spec if it were a RR. Massive downgrade basically with 2.0ltr engine and 6.8seconds to 60. Wife keeps looking through business contract hire deals and pointing out a lot of cars I don’t want because they aren’t a Range Rover. We have the same conversation over and over “Range Rover Sport with the hybrid” “no” “How about a different type of car hmm Mercedes CLS” “no” “What about a Tesla Model S, this one is 2.4 seconds to 60” “Might be fast but it’s soulless and have you seen the interior” “BMW X5” “Trying to be a RR” “Cayenne” “Wannabe RR” “Audi Q7” “Ditto” Practically anything that isn’t a Bentley or higher is a downgrade from a Range Rover Autobiography with the Supercharged V8. I’ve had the car conversation so many times because my wife wants me to give it up (won’t give the school up though) and for me nothing else will do. I love them and have owned them for longer than I’ve known my wife. Yes they drive like boats, don’t really go around corners and are basically just a massive 4x4 with a nice interior. Do I think ‘wow what a car’ when I see a Range Rover - no but they are the best daily driver in the world. Nothing quite like one. It’s a car you want to own it but understated enough no one looks at it too much. It’s at home everywhere whether that be in a rural area, in the suburbs or in the city. Not thinking ‘wow what a car’ is kind of the point.

I like having a new car. It’s nice to know exactly who has driven it and how it’s been looked after. Nothing quite like picking a brand new car up on the day the new plate comes out - appreciate that buzz doesn’t last for long and is financially not really worth it. 

Not gonna lie I want an AM. I’d be happy enough to get rid of the BMW and buy a £25k 15 year old Vantage tbf. Probably buying into lots of problems though and not in a position to buy it for cash. So start to think I could maybe just have a new one on pcp.

Do I read this back and if I were someone else would I probably think ‘wow you sound entitled’ - yeah I suppose I do but I earn the money I deserve to have something nice on my drive.

I’ve admitted I think I am a bit of a spending addict. I’ve bought more bags for wife than she has bought for herself we realised that when we were going through the sell list. I used to buy them regularly as gifts not always birthday or Christmas but because I’d wondered into JL and knew she’d mentioned she liked the purple version of the black one she’d got or whatever. Mulberry woman knows me by name lol. Sometimes I’ll just get an umbrella or a pair of gloves or a nice jacket or something. I’m not a completely selfish individual unlike most men I know her size and what she likes. 

All this said I know it needs to stop and I need to face the punishment of paying for all this before I can have things for myself again. I just don’t know if I can when I’ve had to watch £45k I’ve spent on a car I’ve done 4k miles a year in drive off and I’ll never see it again. Half waiting for one of my car mates telling me they’ve seen it at the auction- lot easier to say ‘yeah I’m buying a Vantage’ than ‘yeah I can’t afford to keep it’. Hard to face I’ll be 45 or whatever until this is put right. I put myself under stress panicking about things that are out of my control (wider economy) because I know my personal finances are nothing but a massive house of cards. Yet so easy to think what’s another £850/m. Easy for others to say ‘save up and pay cash’ - I’d probably be 50 by the time I could buy a new AM for cash. Easy for them to say ‘you’re not really doing that well just forget about the £100k cars and the £1M house, be happy with what you have’ they don’t have to live not being able to sleep with panic about if their business is going to be affected by the downturn because if it were badly affected that’s it my life is over. Don’t have to live with knowing you’re doing well by most benchmarks but can’t make ends meet.

One minute I want to pay the debts down the next I don’t want to acknowledge there’s a problem.