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In Europe, the situation is different (cars and gasoline is a lot more expensive here, and salary in tech is a lot lower), and your argument doesn't make much s
by meuk 8y ago
In Europe, the situation is different (cars and gasoline is a lot more expensive here, and salary in tech is a lot lower), and your argument doesn't make much sense. A new Toyota Corolla is 25k euro, which is more than 28k dollar. That is more than my gross year income and about 8 years of rent (and I work as an IT consultant, which is not a particularly bad job), and I still completely neglected recurring costs (taxes, gasoline).
If you buy a new car, you're paying for the fact that it is new, even if you can't see it. I did a quick search, and found a gorgeous Audi A8 that looks like it's new for 6k. You can buy a crappy old car for about 1k. So anything in between should get you something modest. Most people I know buy used cars, and I rarely have heard anyone having troubles with them (IDK, are American cars less reliable?). If you buy a relatively new used car, you get all of the advantages you list, and none of the disadvantages.
- Nashooo 8y agoWhere are you working that your gross yearly income as an IT Consultant is below 25.000 euro? Did you mean net income?
- meuk 8y agoNetherlands. I am a starter and work part-time (4 days). I'll make more than 25k next year, don't worry ;)
- auber 8y agoYes, the key word in your argument is “if.” Who are these people who go around buying brand new cars and then selling them at huge losses shortly afterwards? It’s just not that common to find a guy who is selling a car like that who also has complete records on all the maintenance. At least in the us where people are very attached to their cars and also lazy.
- winter_blue 8y agoIs your rent for 8 years really less than $28k? That's about $291 per month. I never thought Netherlands could be this insanely cheap. What region in the Netherlands do you live in? My rent was about 8.5 times of that last year (for the whole year of 2018, I paid $28,800). I lived in Manhattan (in NYC). The salaries for programmers is higher though. The average base salary (in NYC) is around $144k[1]. With bonuses and stock though, it can easily reach $200k per year. And it gets even higher in the SF Bay Area. The funny thing is employers are so desperate for programmers that they're willing to hire anyone who can code. You definitely don't need a degree, and you could even be a college dropout. Coding bootcamps have been sprouting like crazy all over the U.S. for the past few years. (And recruiters like Triplebyte helps people without degrees or CS backgrounds get high-paying jobs.[2]) [1] Triplebyte measured NY's average to be $144k (which my experience confirms): https://triplebyte.com/software-engineer-salary https://triplebyte.com/software-engineer-salary [2] https://triplebyte.com/blog/bootcamps-vs-college https://triplebyte.com/blog/bootcamps-vs-college