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I agree that it would be nice to have sub 35k cars but I’m surprised people in the fields and levels you mentioned have to put off buying a car for financial re
by qwerpy 3y ago
I agree that it would be nice to have sub 35k cars but I’m surprised people in the fields and levels you mentioned have to put off buying a car for financial reasons. When I first started working more than a decade ago I was making 60K and didn’t think twice about buying a 25K car. Multiply the numbers by 2 to adjust for inflation now and it should be similar.
- alephnerd 3y ago> I’m surprised people in the fields and levels you mentioned have to put off buying a car for financial reasons The monthly cost reaches $1k a month in 2023 (parking+interest+insurance). We all can afford it, but the question is why spend $12k a year on transportation when Caltrain+BART+Muni+VTA and Uber come out for less. > buying a 25K The average new car in 2023 is $48k, and the average used is $26k. With used you end up paying more in insurance and get worse financing.
- qwerpy 3y agoAh yeah if you live in a big city served by public transportation, having a car becomes a luxury. I’m a suburb/rural guy so having a car is more of a necessity, but housing is cheaper and parking is free so the costs cancel out somewhat.
- alephnerd 3y agoYep. Most of those high earning jobs are in the city and suburban areas, which makes car ownership a luxury. Though, even in rural areas car ownership costs have become heavily unaffordable, now that average rent prices nationally are around $1400/mo compared to $700/mo a decade ago [0], while median salary in 2023 is at $4,000/mo (pre-tax) [0] - https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/histtab11.xlsx https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/histtab11.xlsx