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I think for many people living expenses tend to go up in proportion to income. Bigger mortgage, fancier car, eating out. My mate got a decent payrise, the firs

I think for many people living expenses tend to go up in proportion to income. Bigger mortgage, fancier car, eating out. My mate got a decent payrise, the first thing he did was buy a $50k second-hand sports car. And that's after he just bought his first home with a $700k mortgage. So he's gonna be paying all that off for a loooong time. Glad he's happy but I never understood the whole sportscar thing. They go vroom vroom just like all the other cars.

miss_egghead 4y ago
Worse, because you literally hurl them through traffic at high speeds. If I had to put one of my most valuable possessions on wheels and park it at the grocery store, I would not make that item an especially luxurious thing
pengaru 4y ago
> Glad he's happy but I never understood the whole sportscar thing. They go vroom vroom just like all the other cars. There's sportscars and there's luxury/exotic sportscars. The latter is mostly a class/signaling thing, since you can't even _really_ abuse it unless you're so rich it's the dinghy for your private jet. But a proper prepared sports car is a substantially different driving experience than "all the other cars".
nonameiguess 4y ago
You might be surprised how well certain cars hold their value if you take care of them, even pretty low-end sports cars. Go look at listings for a vintage Supra, M3, even an 80s Trans Am Firebird. They're all selling for much more than they were originally purchased for. They may not be a good investment relative to holding a broad equity index tracking fund, but if you need to own some sort of car, they're a good investment compared to most any other type of car. Likewise with the house. While you probably shouldn't be saturating your entire take home pay with mandatory recurring payments, you're a lot better off spending on assets that hold their value than buying vacations and dinners at expensive restaurants. This is yet another underappreciated difference between what "paycheck to paycheck" means for the affluent versus the poor. There's a big difference between spending all your money on nice houses and cars versus spending it all on rent that buys your landlord a house and beaters that require more in maintenance than purchase price and will be scrapped at best when you finish running it into the ground.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  Those cars hold their value because they're toys that never rack up substantial miles and wear let alone hard miles. See also: Miatas If you're going to own a car as transportation it will not hold its value. You an screech all you want about your commuter Camry/Accord/whatever but it's still dropping value precipitously, just slower than an Impala, which is basically a reflection of how the owners tend to behave.

miss_egghead 4y ago

Worse, because you literally hurl them through traffic at high speeds. If I had to put one of my most valuable possessions on wheels and park it at the grocery store, I would not make that item an especially luxurious thing

pengaru 4y ago

> Glad he's happy but I never understood the whole sportscar thing. They go vroom vroom just like all the other cars. There's sportscars and there's luxury/exotic sportscars. The latter is mostly a class/signaling thing, since you can't even _really_ abuse it unless you're so rich it's the dinghy for your private jet. But a proper prepared sports car is a substantially different driving experience than "all the other cars".

nonameiguess 4y ago

You might be surprised how well certain cars hold their value if you take care of them, even pretty low-end sports cars. Go look at listings for a vintage Supra, M3, even an 80s Trans Am Firebird. They're all selling for much more than they were originally purchased for. They may not be a good investment relative to holding a broad equity index tracking fund, but if you need to own some sort of car, they're a good investment compared to most any other type of car. Likewise with the house. While you probably shouldn't be saturating your entire take home pay with mandatory recurring payments, you're a lot better off spending on assets that hold their value than buying vacations and dinners at expensive restaurants. This is yet another underappreciated difference between what "paycheck to paycheck" means for the affluent versus the poor. There's a big difference between spending all your money on nice houses and cars versus spending it all on rent that buys your landlord a house and beaters that require more in maintenance than purchase price and will be scrapped at best when you finish running it into the ground.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
Those cars hold their value because they're toys that never rack up substantial miles and wear let alone hard miles. See also: Miatas If you're going to own a car as transportation it will not hold its value. You an screech all you want about your commuter Camry/Accord/whatever but it's still dropping value precipitously, just slower than an Impala, which is basically a reflection of how the owners tend to behave.