In order to finance a dollar of monthly spending, you need roughly $300 invested. Actual returns are generally somewhat higher, due to requiring a lower amount

In order to finance a dollar of monthly spending, you need roughly $300 invested. Actual returns are generally somewhat higher, due to requiring a lower amount of variance to handle sequence-of-returns risk in distribution, but the rule of thumb holds. Which suggests the car-buying habit puts you roughly $150k in the hole.