How much to spend on a nice first car?

[Jamougha]

Unless you buy an amazing car or a complete pos you will habituate to it within a few weeks and your level of satisfaction will be roughly the same after that.

If you buy an amazing car then you will probably get annoyed with it because it can't ever live up to expectations and end up less happy than if you plumped for something more middle-of-the-road! Sounds stupid, but it's borne out by a lot of scientific research, as well as my on experience of splurging on stuff.

So I would go for an inexpensive decent car. I would choose a classic car, they're cheap but classy.

For me the expense involved in buying and owning a car doesn't seem worth it, and I'd be pretty upset at earning $100k in a year. YMMV.

[Taylor Caby]

I wouldn't spend more than 5 or 10k on a car. Seems pretty ridiculous to spend 20k+, at this age, on a car, if you aren't really sure where you are even going to live or how much you are going to make in the next year.

Also, having a nice car in a college town is generally a bad idea. I dinged up my [censored] car plenty of times in college.

tc

[oddjob]

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I wouldn't recommend spending over 25K on the car. 15K-20K is probably a better idea. Things like insurance and maintenance add up pretty fast, cars have a lot of expenses outside of just the purchase price.

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the more expensive the car, the more expensive the maintenance as well. keep this in mind.

personally i'd get a reliable used car for now, and see where i'm going to end up. if you end up in san fransisco, then you might not even need a car.

[good2cu]

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Background: Recently I had a large tournament score and made 120k before taxes which I am about to wire out.


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Just enough money to buy a new brand Mizartati. Coincidence? I think not.

Disclaimer: This post is not from an older or wiser poster.

P.S If you drive your Mizartai around campus and have a little bit of game I promise you will get laid A LOT!!!!!

[guids]

Put that 90k in an account getting 5%, thats 4500/yr, or 375 a month. Oddly enough, 375 is exactly what my car payment is (04 escalade, 29k miles when bought, with 2k down). The [censored] part is insurance, at 21, its going to be pretty expensive, Im 25, 1 accident 3 years ago and mine is 1800/YR, but I also have a couple other cars on there. After 5 years you still have your 90k and your car paid off. I dont know what your financial situation is, but if you are planning on around 100k for next year, its not like buying a car is going to send you to the poorhouse...I dont understand that thinking from a lot of posters..wtf? if you enjoy a nice car, buy it.

PS- if you arent buying brand new, your interest rate is going to measurably larger, that is a trade off you should factor in. I went through penfed.org, and got 5.9% which is better than youll get on a used car from any dealer.

and good2cu, wtf is a mizartati/mizartai? do you mean maserati?

[AceCR9]

you people are [censored] nits!!!!

thats why if you ask this question in El D forum, you also have to ask it in BBV4Life. the correct answer will be somewhere in between.

I'm buying a car soon, not going nuts, but at 22 I'd like something nice rather than just a car that gets me from A to B. I'm going to be spending about 25k

[Triumph36]

seriously i can't believe the nitty advice in this thread

if clayton needs money he can always sell the car - a pain to be sure, but if he wants a nice car, he should get one.

i do wonder why he only has $5k online for poker - wtf? 2/4 is ez game.

[Dids]

I feel like this is a question that really Clayton can answer best himself.

There's some niceness/ballerness/price level that you want. Figure out what that is. Depending on what "nice" is to you, that can be 20k or it can be 50k.

[El Diablo]

SH: Claiming mileage as a business expense is fine. Claiming car payments is like begging to get audited.

Clayton: If I were you, I'd probably commit the bulk of your "car money" to poker bankroll and give myself a shot at having a lot more money in a year, at which point you'll be in a much more comfortable position to buy a relatively nice car.

[lippy]

This is your real play. Vegas, one hand of BJ for 10k (gotta split/double LDO). Win, buy a 30k car, lose buy a 10k car.

Lose a double, you're walkin. Lose a split, double, double, you're jumping off Stratosphere.