As a bike rider, I forget this is a thing. Asked my neighbor, he pays $350/month in insurance alone đ
As a bike rider, I forget this is a thing. Asked my neighbor, he pays $350/month in insurance alone đ
233 comments
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Dave Ramsey is a hack.
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Is he the idiot who demands you only pay for things in cash and store it in labeled envelopes?
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Doesnât that 1950s(?idk) advice kinda work for some people?
âDemandsâ though thatâs odd
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He's right for most people first beginning to improve their financial health. He has probably gotten more people out of debt than any other 'guru'. If that's a hack, so be it, it works.
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Dave Ramsey has excellent financial advice for a certain type of person. I bet 90% of people reading this need Dave Ramsey style advice.
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In this land of legalised extortion in the form of insurance my friend who is in his mid 30s and been driving over a decade with no claims has to pay ÂŁ700 per month.
My mum wanted to add my sister (again mid thirties and driving for nearly 20 years now with no claims) to her policy so she could borrow her car for a week and then maybe use the car once a month if that and they wanted an additional ÂŁ1000 a month for the privaledge.
Fucking scum.
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Per month?! Wtf are you driving? (Late 40s here, paying around ÂŁ400 per year for my electric mini insurance)
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My bad, i wrote per month but i meant per year, that was my mistake. He is driving a 1.4 turbo new shape VW Scirocco (sp). My mothers car is a 1.3 Citroen C3 so hardly expensive, luxury or even quick cars. Even ÂŁ400 is disgustingly over priced in my opinion though, the way this country does insurance is vile.
Australia's system of buying registration which then covers your basic insurance (third party cover) which is like a tax and insurance cost combined for the car is much more logical, then if you want to you can buy additional fully comp cover for the car none of this insuring per driver per car bullshit.
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Car insurance is expensive because cars are both risky and highly destructive. Hence, making a market for them involves high prices.
Regardless of what you think of insurance companies, there's just no way around this - you could nationalize car insurance and it would still either be really expensive, either on the policy level or else born by taxes.
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I'm not trying to argue against the fact that they are both risky and highly destructive, it is definitely necessary. My issue is more with the way that it works in the UK. I think the system in somewhere like Australia is a lot fairer and isnt inherently designed to bleed people of the maximum amount of money like it is in the UK.
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You can shop around for insurance, you don't have to just take what they give you.
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Assuming you begin investing at the age of 20 and invest $554 per month for 45 years at a 6% growth rate, you would yield 1.4 million. Definitely not MILLIONS.
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6% is very conservative though. Even at 7%, which is a widely accepted inflation adjusted number, it's over 2 mil.
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The other thing is that the monthly investment amount should increase when income does, which at minimum should match inflation.
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And then you add the inflation and you actually just owe money. Got to get that third job at 65
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Inflation historically has been 1 to 4 %.
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What commonly goes unsaid in these conversations of insurance cost is the immediate disputes that occur with the provider.
Why am I paying tens of thousands a year to engage in an argument when making a claim?
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I was once rear ended at a red light. I was knocked unconscious and the driver drove off. A few kind witnesses called police who took a report. They got half his plate imprinted on my bumper, but never tracked him down. I had State Farm, and I was even paying extra for the "uninsured driver coverage". They said they couldn't cover it because until they had another driver's information I was automatically at fault, even with the police report and witness accounts. They said it didn't count as uninsured driver because it's possible the guy had insurance. I was flabbergasted.
In the end I had a concussion and needed to take time off work for recovery and my short term disability insurance ended up suing State Farm because they didn't want to pay for my medical treatment. State Farm agreed to cover medical care but only if it was recorded as my fault and I paid my deductible. In anger I tried to switch insurance companies but found out they have a shared database and since it was recorded as a hit and run my fault, nobody else would take me. And State Farm jacked my rate up 30%...
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I realised in a similar, though less detrimental, encounter that true insurance comes in the form of dash cameras. For the equivalent of an insurance payment or two, a high fidelity video of the entire vehicle surroundings can be had.
Honestly though, with a few witnesses and half a plate, it's a surprise they couldn't find the car that drove into you. Decerning the colour, and style of car, surely it'd be only a handful of vehicles matching both the description and the numbers.
I'm sorry that happened to you.
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State Farm also screwed over a guy I know. He dumped their policy after they wouldn't pay anything on his accident (much less dramatic than yours) where they had some kind of parking related crash with 2 of their cars at home. State Farm told him that he could not be covered for an accident with another car on his policy because he "can't sue himself" so it sounds like they are only paying out when they have someone to sue about it.
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You are not kidding!
I got a motorcycle and paid for insurance. When someone stole my bike and police caught the guy and put it in the impound, my scummy ass insurance called me to go see if it's okay? Like bro, that's your job.
Then they said if I was willing to sign a contract that the bike was fine without allowing me to see it. I said no.
Finally they gave up and wrote me a check for the cost of the bike.
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Goes to show how strange modern life is that it was easier for them to cut a cheque than send someone down there. Happens all the time unfortunately. I wonder if someone at the impound lot rode it home.
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Not a motorcycle, but my car was hit (along with several others) by a guy evading the police. I wasn't even in it, we were in a city and cars were parked along the street, and he came over a hill, ran a red light, t-boned someone, and then bounced against a bunch of cars down the street.
When I got the police report, I filed a claim with my insurance, which was the same insurance company as the criminal. They originally told me that, "There were 7 vehicles involved in this accident, and other vehicles were damaged much worse than yours, so we're not sure if his policy will cover all of the damage... So we'll have to file the claim under your policy, you'd just have to pay your deductible."
Absolutely not, I told her. "Well Sir, you have to unders-"
"No, ma'am, YOU need to understand that your customer's inability to be a responsible citizen is NOT my problem, and I am NOT having my premiums go up, or paying my deductible, when I did absolutely nothing wrong." After escalating to a manager and giving her an earful while threatening to drop my policy with them effective immediately, they miraculously realized his policy would cover the damage to my car. Easy day, right?
Now, I'll be honest: The damage to my car was completely cosmetic, but I was poor and could have really used some extra cash, hence why I was pursuing it. Well, brought the car in to be looked over by the insurance folks, and the assessed damage was like $800. Cool, I asked her for my check so I could go home.
"Oh, well, Sir, you still have a lien on the vehicle, and normally we would send it to your bank, and they would tell you where to go and then pay the repair shop."
Oh, cool, well, that's not what we're doing, I already have a shop lined up, I said, but needed the money for the parts.
Big tall dude comes over, also an insurance employee, as the woman and I are going back and forth, and he chimes in and goes, "Well, Sir, y'know, typically the bank holding the lien wants to handle these things, and, y'know, if the repairs aren't made and they repossess the vehicle, you could owe the repair costs."
My response: "Huh, fascinating. Sounds like a conversation between my bank and I, and with all due respect, I don't understand who you are to have that discussion on their behalf."
"Just cut him the check," as he walks away.
I fucking hate insurance companies.
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here's me, a grown ass adult with a car i paid off like 4 years ago - nothing special, a smallish commuter POS that gets 40mpg that i literally use to drive 4 miles to work and back.
i was paying about $630/year because i pay for a year at a time, and it'd be almost double that to pay monthly, like what the actual fuck? anyways, a few months ago i get this email from the insurance company telling me "hey get ready your policy will renew in 3 months, be sure to double check your payment method" so i log into my account and they were gonna raise my premium to $970/yr and there was literally no obvious way to see that they were gonna do that. it was a case of logging in, going through multiple levels of menus to get to the future policy, download a pdf of that policy, then view it offline.
well, i'm pissed, so i call them to find out what the hell they're doing and why and they claimed it's because i had gotten a speeding ticket. of course, they had zero information to share with me about that speeding ticket - no ticket number, no date/time, no address, nothing. i sure as hell don't recall getting a speeding ticket, and in any case, with a spotless driving record, you'd think there'd be some kind of interfacing with me about it, but no. they claimed the ticket was real and i'd need to contact my DMV to find out more.
so i call them, the DMV, and after some hassle, find out they have ZERO record of any speeding ticket. so.... back on the phone with the insurance company and they just wanna give me the shaft and the runaround no exceptions. i mean, i'm pissed now because it's OBVIOUS fraud, right? Anyways, i get absolutely nowhere. so i tell them to cancel my policy and i woulda thought about contacting a lawyer about a possible case or something but, naw....
i still have the car, and it's parked being unused. I swapped to riding bikes to and from work, sometimes an ebike, sometimes a fixie, and i'm the only cyclist on the road around here that I've ever seen and it's sometimes really sketchy. but i plan to ride through the winter, dry or snowy, i don't care.
it can get complicated, because i'm a single father, but honestly, fuck auto insurance, fuck cars, fuck car brain. we gotta make a stand at some point and I lament that we can't really do it collectively.
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I'm with you there.
Not too long ago, my company was informed by letter (as you should have been) of a price increase. I can't remember exactly, but I want to say it was a 600% increase on the company's rates. There's never been any claims on the policy, they just decided they could do it to enough of their clients, and probably enough would pay it that it wouldn't matter they'd lose a bunch.
I understand the provide we switched to actually provides greater coverage for less than the original amount we paid the first provider. Unbelievable.
It wasn't specifically for insurance reasons, but I got rid of my car after I noticed I wasn't driving very far. Now we have a couple cargo trailers and we do the shopping and the errands just as easily and we're saving tens of thousands doing it. We go through the winter as well, it's not for everyone but dress appropriately and have lights and you'll do great.
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I've had great luck going through an insurance broker for my insurance. The broker can be a mediator should the insurance company engage in sketchy nonsense, and can get you into some cushy insurance companies than only do B2B and don't spend millions on consumer advertising. Plus brokers will know what insurance companies to go through for what buyers to likely get you the best rate
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My job is shopping around for third party customer support vendors. One of their pitches I kept hearing was, "We don't lie to you about times."
And then they shared how their competitors were trained on a method of customer service where their goal was to get you to hang up as fast as possible to increase their velocity Metrics. So they would literally lie to you. Thinking it was a joke, I googled and yeah, apparently that was a REAL tactic done for decades.
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Dave Ramsey is an out of touch asshole though.
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Normies love larping his boomer takes tho haha
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sure, maybe. but FUCK Dave Ramsey.
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some people care DEEPLY about what kind of car everyone drives. that's literally why overpriced cars even exist
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i prefer a well maintained shitbox đ
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As a bike rider, doesn't that skew even more the relative advantage you get by not giving a fuck? If nobody wants a "weak" car, they should be even cheaper than in a sane market that values cars by their ability to go fast and accurately from A to B, no?
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No, because they pay out the nose for huge SUVs these days which increases the chance they'll kill us cyclists.
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Eh, it also means relatively fewer weak cars are being built. So it helps, but not as much as you'd think.
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I think more-so, some people think everyone else gives a shit about what they drive.
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Works both ways too, Sam Bankman Fried apparently fooled a lot of people by cosplaying as a Toyota Corolla driver
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Memes circulating with this dude right now, even if positioning him as a chud, are a way to launder this dude as just a legit money guy. Sure, he has some basic, broad financial advice you can consider if you can see through all the Jesus and have no other options, but more than anything else, he's a vile human being.
Eat religious shit dave ramsey.
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Dave Ramsey hasn't tried to buy a reliable used car in the last decade, at least. You aren't going to find anything under about $10k that's actually reliable where I am. A mid-90s Toyota with 300,000 miles maybe, but not anything under 150,000.
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With the $554 average new car payment in the original post, you can afford that $10k new-to-you used car outright in cash every 18 months.
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Average price of a used car in the US, right now, is $29,000. Which means that for a $554 payment, it's going to be 5.4 years rather than 1.5. From there, you need to figure out how many miles you put on a car in a year, make some rough guesses about how many miles the average car has left before the cost to repair exceeds the cost of replacing, etc. Obvs. a high mileage used car is going to require significantly more maintenance than a new car will (...in most cases, as long as you aren't buying a new Land Rover or Jaguar), so you'll need to figure that in as well. You'll probably want good insurance, even if you're only required to carry minimal liability insurance, because any accident could be catastrophic for your finances if you can't afford to repair your car.
It's a bit of a death spiral; wages are still too low, car prices are too high.
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I walk or bike to about 90% of the places I need to go. That said, I also recently bought a vehicle for $1200. Works fine except the fuel gauge is broke so I have to just keep it topped off. My neighbor is trying to sell his Kia Rio for $1500. Works fine. It'll last at least another 3 or 4 years. Likely more. I have a friend whose son totaled out his car. He wanted another. I recommended a car that was in the $1000 to $2000 price range. He didn't want it. He took out a loan and got a very nice, very sporty car. Then he got in another wreck and totaled it out too. So then he goes and gets himself another expensive car. I just don't understand.
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As a pedestrian, I'm glad not to support big bike chain lube, I'm saving dozens of pennies annually
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Oh, you're one of those shills for the shoe-leather industry! đ
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Oh come on, Lemmy. I know I'm on c/fuckcars; but seriously - $600 a month for a new car sounds really good to me, I'm from Eastern Europe.
It's good because new cars are significantly more reliable, fuel efficient, safe and comfortable than 10+ year old cars. If you drive a lot and can't afford to pay $15k up front for a decent ~6yo car, then it's really not that bad. Much better than buying $600 rolling wreckage, I can tell you that much.
Yes people, I know you only use bikes and trains and whatnot. But some people neee cars, and you have to respect that. Or are you gonna tell this mother of 2, living in a village, working from office 20km from home, that she would be better off just sticking to the public transport which visits her place once every 2 hours.
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This is for insurance, not the cost of buying the car. Yes some people do need cars because of their situation and the majority of people here can recognise that but to pay so much just for fucking insurance!
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I don't get your comment. You can have a decent car new at 400âŹ/month and I still think that's ridiculously high.
Used cars make so much more sense when you value rational arguments. (Or bikes, public transportation, feet).
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I don't think you can have a large family wagon for âŹ400, at least in my country (Poland)
Buying a new car is a poor financial decision in general, considering things like depreciation or extreme leasing costs.
So yeah, I agree, buying a used car is the way to go, but getting one also gets much much more difficult the older and cheaper you want it to be.
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Yes people, I know you only use bikes and trains and whatnot. But some people neee cars, and you have to respect that. Or are you gonna tell this mother of 2, living in a village, working from office 20km from home, that she would be better off just sticking to the public transport which visits her place once every 2 hours.
The point of this movement isn't to simply ban cars like that will somehow solve all of life's problems. Some people use bikes and trains not just because they can, but because they have to.
Cars are a symptom of a pattern of development that makes us disconnected, both from each other and from our needs. It isn't right that you should have to work 20km from home where the only option you have is to spend monthly payments on a car loan, insurance and gas. You should have the option to work from home, or closer to home, or within reach of easily accessible and usable public transit.
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Millions? I don't think so. There is no investment that would turn $30K or whatever into millions that was safe enough to work for the majority of people. But it would be a significant help.
That being said, for most people, the amount you'd spend to live in a place where a car isn't needed or constantly paying for ride share or taxis greatly exceeds the amount you'd save by not having a car for the vast majority of people, and that's not even getting into the ableism issue.
And sure we could get into buying a cheaper, used car or whatever, but in the long term the maintenance costs, having to buy another car sooner, and other financial risks to cars outside of warrantee over a lifetime will add up similarly unless you're really lucky or can repair your own cars.
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$554 a month at 5% growth is $440k after 30 years. So yeah not millions.
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S&P averaged about 10% over the last 30 years. That means it would be over 1.2 million.
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Working life is more like 40 years. Those back end years are huge, it goes up to 840k. Which is why you're supposed to start on your 401k right away. Of course 99% of people don't get this talk until they're 40; go through a poverty period after high school; or never make it out of paycheck to paycheck living for other reasons. (Like medical debt)
Very few people get the good pay, good contributions, and consequently the good retirement. We also completely lie to people about retirement. We tell them they have to scrimp and save so they aren't homeless when they're 80. In reality half of us will be dead by 75 and half again by 85.
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And sure we could get into buying a cheaper, used car or whatever, but in the long term the maintenance costs, having to buy another car sooner, and other financial risks to cars outside of warrantee over a lifetime will add up similarly unless youâre really lucky or can repair your own cars.
Buying a low-mileage used car and even paying for a shop to do the maintenance is almost always cheaper than buying something with $500+ monthly payments. I don't actually agree for the most part with Dave Ramsey (even about the entirety of this post)...but he's correct that it is cheaper.
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Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. So any car for that amount is not going to survive long. So most Americans still get loans for used cars.
And with interest rates so high, a payment of $550 will only get you about $25K. That's enough for a decent new small sedan, but if you have kids (especially if 3 or more), that's probably the minimum needed to get a used minivan that will last a while.
Anything else is only going to last a few years at best before needing major repairs.
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and thatâs not even getting into the ableism issue.
Infrastructure that requires people to drive is far more ableist than the inverse. As many people with a disability can't drive at all (or driving is a significant challenge).
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Right. That was what I was saying.
I didn't get into that issue, but it's a major one, and not just for people confined to a wheelchair who might be able to get assistance through government sponsored programs, but also people with certain types of PTSD, Autism, ADHD, anxiety issues, etc., (including lots of veterans) or people with vision issues or other disabilities that aren't considered "enough" of a disability to get help, but make it difficult or impossible to drive.
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The whole, where do you live thing is super important. The last time we moved my wife and I were very adamant about a specific maximum commute length in car, or a length by transit. And getting somewhere to live that was easy to commute from. We compared the price including mass transit commute at the max distance to anything we were getting closer with the commute included from there too.
The differences were absolutely significant. Many places were cheaper to live an hour away, even with car payments, insurance, and gas. That's absolutely ridiculous and part of so many problems from climate change to motor vehicle deaths.
We need to enforce mixed development, the people who work in an area need to be able to afford living in that area. Pushing the workers out should not be acceptable.
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the people who work in an area need to be able to afford living in that area.
I read an article in my local paper that 95% of the workers in my town don't live in town. And while there are new apartment buildings going up, paying $2000/mo for 300 sq ft without a washer/dryer or even an oven is not going to be attracting much of that 95% back.
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That being said, for most people, the amount youâd spend to live in a place where a car isnât needed or constantly paying for ride share or taxis greatly exceeds the amount youâd save by not having a car for the vast majority of people, and thatâs not even getting into the ableism issue.
I disagree with everything else you say, as the other replies to you point out. But this is a really good point.
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Every used car I've ever owned cost thousands in repairs that were unexpected. Head gaskets, alternators, O2 sensors, intake manifolds, ignition coils, brake calipers, radiators, every fucking time. It's cheaper to just get a five year loan on a 2 year old car around $20k than to fuck with anything used.
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That's really close to a Camry hybrid too, then you get a warranty plus residual value is going to be very high.
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This was the best thing about living in New York. No need for a car. No expenses paid in car payments, gas, or insurance. People claim that New York City is expensive, and rents are certainly higher than most places, but you end up saving so much money just on the cost of owning a car alone. Overall, the cost of living for me was much cheaper in New York City than it is now in Orlando.
I wish I had the resources to go back.
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I live in a major city with decent (not excellent, just decent) transportation.
Yokels from small towns talk about how "expensive" it is until I ask them how much they pay for rent and food. And it always surprises them theyre paying the same damn amount thanks to inflation.
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Eh... Used to live in the city in a 500 sq ft condo built in '75 and similar units would be rented for the same price I'm paying to rent a 900sq ft apartment built in 2014 in a small town with all services one could need... Bonus, I don't need my car to do the groceries because it's 2 minutes door to door from where I live now compared to 5 minutes in my car when I was at the condo.
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That's really exorbitant insurance. I don't know where he lives or what is situation is but $350 a month is insane.
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You can buy a very nice e-bike every year with that money.
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I was unemployed for most of last year and let my insurance lapse. I'd be lucky if anyone would insure me for $350/month.
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I'd put money on a pretty messy driving history for the insurance to be that much.
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Two cars (~$50k each), two adult drivers, one accident in the last 7 years, no tickets = $453/mo. Fuck California and the weak cunt Newsom that can't get these greedy fuckers under control.
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Wouldn't surprise me if that neighbour has been in a few accidents, gotten a bunch of speeding tickets, and/or is a young male.
Also depends on what they are driving.
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If you pay 500$ a month for 30 years at 5% interest compounded monthly you would contribute $180k and would have $416,129 so not really a million. You would need a little less than 9.5% interest to get a million. 2% interest is only getting you $246k which when you take into account inflation 2-3% normal average minus 5% one of the higher realistic interests that is what you are actually making .
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If you pay 500$ a month for 30 years at 5% interest compounded monthly you would contribute $180k and would have $416,129 so not really a million. You would need a little less than 9.5% interest to get a million. 2% interest is only getting you $246k which when you take into account inflation 2-3% normal average minus 5% one of the higher realistic interests that is what you are actually making .
Ramsey is always very optimistic about investment returns. His advice isn't too bad though.
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Spoken like someone who's long since stopped worrying about having to commute without mass transit available.
If mass transit is available and reasonable then yeah, go off. But otherwise please stop blaming the victims of Capitalism.
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Move somewhere you have mass transit wtf
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It drives me crazy when i get spam that says they can save me money on my car insurance
O rly? How you gonna beat $0?
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I told one of these spam callers that my license has been legally revoked. It has been almost 15 years since I last got one of those calls. They used to be something that happened, at least, a few times per day.
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I paid $830/month for a moderately priced car at only 2.9% for a few years. 1/3 my current yearly salary in full. It wasnât smart, but I beat inflation at that rate. That car let me and my wife travel so much in our early marriage and it was so worth it. The car is more expensive now then when I bought it.
I love that car and it brought me joy. Itâs paid off now.
Tomorrow is not promised. Save for the future but donât neglect being happy today. Go live a little.
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Insurance payments for teenage boys are INSANE. $100-150 is the usual but my buddy is paying literally $300 a month on a year 200X Tahoe that he bought for $700 and fixed himself. Its the cheapest option on his families insurance and his parents won't let him switch.
That's not even payments that's INSURANCE.
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Giving teenager a tahoe is a liability lol
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Yup, when I was 18-23 I was the primary driver of our car, but we put the insurance and name under my gf (now wife) and it was half the cost if I had gotten the insurance instead.
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Honestly if someone were to have said that garbage to him 40 years ago he prolly would have called it unAmerican and communistical.
It is weird to watch the ethical scoliosis happen in real time over the decades.
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Wtf does your neighbor drive that insurance is $350 per month on it? A Ferrari?
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A bad wreck history. Or Florida.
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Male under 25 with anything over 150hp will make you pay a fuck ton.
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I thought the same. Also it's much higher for young males under age 25. Tbf testosterone is a bitch and that demographic causes a lot of the most extreme preventable accidents.
Which ironically encourages people to ride bikes! If only that were not nearly a suicidal activity in the USA in so many places... đą
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Could be multiple vehicles or they have a kid on the policy.
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No kidding, I pay less than $100 month to insure 2 cars with State Farm. I've never had an issue with them paying a claim, and my agent meets with me every few years to go over my options and every single time I walk away with better coverage and less payment.
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Example reason: https://mastodon.social/tags/FloatingCars
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Regular Ford 2015? Nothing fancy at all.
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I prefer to ride my bike. I have a little trailer so I can take my dogs with me. That said, I also have a car. It's paid off and my insurance is about $60 a month.
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I was looking for a new car a few years ago, but i didn't have to rush, i didn't have a car for almost two years and just used my work car if i really needed one. Then covid hit and i was still sometimes browsing cars. People were selling the cars they no longer can afford and i was fucking shocked to see people selling cars saying that the monthly pay off is like 1200 or shit like that. Who would think that is a good idea? If you can afford it there is no reason to pay it off, and if you can't, it's too expensive. That is just the car payment, no insurance or road fees or anything.
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$1200 is ridiculous. That's how much my mortgage is.
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insurance is whats insane nowadays. i was paying 600 a YEAR for full coverage on my truck until last year when they spiked it to 2100. dropped to just liability and that alone is 650 a year now
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Insurance varies a lot with what you drive, where, amount of coverage, and history of driving.
Mine is around $800/year and I drive nothing to brag about. (Well, except cost of ownership and safety record. Knock on wood). But my partner pays more because they have more coverage and a newer car worth covering.
But if you think $350/month is high, let me introduce you to private health insurance. đ
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I suppose that does depend on what kind of coverages you have, bare minimum liability vs. full coverage, etc. $350/month just for auto still sounds insanely high, though!
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Oh yeah, not disagreeing with that!
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I care about what kind of car i drive and all of mine are broken because they're old garbage.
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I pay about $450 a month for my mini cargo van and another $80-ish for insurance. I also drive about 3,000 miles a month (my commute is long and I spend most weekends out of town helping my parents), so I average about 350 dollars a month in gas. Let's call it another 100 a month on average for maintenance (I do my own oil, the tires are pretty cheap, but there will be occasional large expenses).
So that comes out to pretty close to a thousand dollars a month total. That's a lot of money.
But by living in the middle of the country far from work, I can rent a trailer home that costs about $1500/month less than a tiny apartment close enough to work to walk or bike, and I have the freedom of owning a car and being able to go anywhere and haul anything I need.
So yeah, it's expensive, but it would be even more expensive NOT to have it.
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The US sounds extremely expensive. In the EU 1500$ a month will pay for a very nice apartment close to work.
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I work for a tiny city that's basically a private enclave for the ultra-rich in the middle of a major city.
Literally every household is millionaires or better, and we have a lot of citizens whose names you'd know.
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And they pay for terrible health insurance and health care
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depends where in EU
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Here in the USA my mortgage on a modestly sized house is half that cost. Owning a home in the EU sounds much more expensive to me.
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If it works for you, great, but are you sure you declared your vehicle use on your insurance correctly? Seems like you may have said it's not a commuter vehicle
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I have an impeccable driving record and only have liability abs gap on my car since it has so many miles it's basically worthless as far as the insurance company is concerned. If it were to be totaled they'd give me like 500 bucks if I carried full coverage.
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I'm actually looking to move from owning to leasing a car because it's been false economy. The maintenance costs and stress have been so high as to make it cheaper to pay a few hundred quid each month.
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I'm not familiar with UK laws. Is the lease bundled with insurance?
Or separate thing?
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Not inherently. I have the option of having the lease company handle insurance, but it's much more cost effective not to.
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I've never understood buying a car on credit. My car's 17 years old now. Bought it when it was 8 years old. Insurance is âŹ390/yr.
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Liquidity. Buying a car on credit is mostly stupid, but there are cases when it makes some sense. My last car loan was 3.54%. My combined accounts were earning ~8%. Paying cash in that case would be throwing away money. Well, throwing away money on top of wasting it on a car.
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Never buying a vehicle I can't pay upfront for again if I can help it. Hated those payments the first time I had to go through it. I do more real work with my 80's era pickup than the yuppies who need their "toy haulers" do that sit almost twice as high. Plus, once I get the diesel swapped in and I'm running biodiesel, I have less emissions as well. Did you know that modern American diesels are so tuned for regular diesel that they can't run biodiesel? I assume the Euro models can though.
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Usually biodiesel compatibility is a function of fuel pumps and injectors, the high performance ones are $$$. I wouldn't assume Euro models are biodiesel compatible, the VW diesels weren't after the 'Pumpe dĂŒse' era.
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I assume the euro stuff is all compatible because biodiesel is more common there and they have different emissions standards. Material wise, you just need synthetic rubbers, which have been standard since the 90's. The tuning issue comes from biodiesel being slightly more viscous. This effects injector diameter and injector pump pressure. The ignition point is also slightly different and timing can be adjusted, but I've never bother. Older diesels had enough tolerance that these things never mattered much, but newer ones aren't rated for more then 20% and I haven't heard of someone who's actually tested that.
It's also less relevant as HVO based diesel also comes from veg oil and is much, much closer to regular diesel then biodiesel is.
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The hell are these people driving? I pay $240/mo for a goddamn Lexus.
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Could also be their shit credit rating playing into that.
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I also have shit credit though
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Hah, look at this guy that doesn't even have a cybertruck!
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I had no idea my insurance is so much. But it is a lot. If I think about it I'll get angry.
You can take defensive driving courses to lower it though.
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Uhhh... I pay less than that per YEAR for insurance on two motorcycles. Fuck cars, indeed.
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I have never owned a car that did not already belong to 2 family members prior. Surprisingly, I have yet to be kicked down the social ladder and sweep dung for a living.
Also, used cars are like 3000⏠here. I have no idea of used cars, but at some point having them be serviced every year should be cheaper than monthly payments, right?
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Or you can take the train, walk or bike. All of which are much much cheaper.
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$2.50 for an all day bus pass in my area. Even taking it 5x a week is only $50/mo. And yet all of my peers refuse to use it and act disgusted when I tell them I prefer to take the bus, like it's below them. I don't get it.
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Unfortunately, it's not too practical to bike 12 miles on the motorway.
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I would love to.
Please build trains or stop blaming me.
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No one is blaming you. But I'm sorry you're in this situation.
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lol how is this comment getting downvotes in this community
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Too many people from all with car brain
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We bought a reliable car for 22k without financing. Our next car will be bought when this one dies. It's not necessary to have a new car every couple of years.
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âNo one cares about what car you driveâ has such Boomer energy to it, and itâs completely false.
Our 2nd car (ie. the one we use if my wife or I need to commute individually - suburban sprawl means we live in a public transportation desert), is a beat-up 15yo Hyundai hatchback.
We both love it because itâs economical, surprisingly reliable, cheap as anything to maintain, and we donât particularly care if it gets dinged at a parking lot.
But the looks we get from our peers when we drive to our respective offices (we usually WFH), holy crap! Constantly having to explain ourselves is tiresome, and our line managers have both made off-handed comments sarcastically asking if weâre not being paid enough. đ€Šđ»ââïž
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Thats really weird. Your coworkers are strange
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You have a point, but you need to not care about some else's bullshit opinion. You don't need to explain yourself. Save your dough and you'll have money for whatever suits you down the road.
Paying cash for big items like cars isn't always the best idea, but less debt never hurts.
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Yeah, instead of "no one cares about what car you drive" it should be "you shouldn't concern yourself with the opinion of anyone who cares about what car you drive".
15yo Hyundai hatchback
surprisingly reliable
You've been lucky then. That I believe is in the era of Hyundai/Kia where they'd chew up replacement engines like crazy. But I guess it didn't affect all engines.
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The car was a hand-me-down from one of our grandparents, with ~100K miles on the odometer.
They owned it since new, and like most old peopleâs cars - it was religiously serviced. Keeping up with maintenance goes a long way towards keeping most cars on the road (unless theyâre BMWs, but thatâs a whole other story).
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Maybe it's different in your social circle. I work with engineers and technicians and keeping an old car going is respected not derided.
I wouldn't want to hang around with people that look down their noses at me because I drive a car with 100,000 miles on the clock.
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Itâs not so much our social circles; rather our respective companiesâ Department Heads and C-Suites. Appearances and office politics play a hand in perception, unfortunately.
While I can somewhat understand their viewpoints, as both my wife and I are paid well - neither of us have client-facing roles, and we have a nice enough family car for carting around the bub and in-laws.
There is honestly something liberating about not worrying about dings, scratches, or expensive replacement parts.
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My boss did joke about giving me a raise to get me a car and I'm all for it.
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Sorry, the best "for you and your future"?? OUR future
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If you can afford to pay cash then take the loan and invest the cash elsewhere, and if you can beat the interest on the loan then come back to write better financial advice than this. And even if you can't you'd at least have done something interesting.
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Your math is ignoring compound interest. 40 years of monthly installments of 554 earning 8% would ultimately compound to $3.2M
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Your calculation is ignoring inflation adjustment. net interest rate would be %4 at most.
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He's not suggesting to put that $554 under your mattress. He means to put it in some sort of retirement account, where that sweet sweet compounding interest goes to work.
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