Thanks for the feedback, everbody! Comments below...
Is your job secure? How much is that $4k in terms of your net worth?
Cars are just transportation to me, but I have spent a lot more than that for foreign travels over the last few years. I have no immediate plan for foreign travel now, not because the expense really puts a dent (I lose or gain 2 to 5 trip worths a day), but because I would not feel good doing it now. If it brings my wife and myself happiness, I would.
So, if that car brings you happiness, and you feel reasonably safe with your job, then go for it.
By the way, the $4K seems low as a difference between new and old cars.
You enabler, you!
You're right, the $4k difference isn't much in the grand scheme of things. Part of the reason for the low cost difference is that this "new" car is actually a year
older than my current SUV. If it weren't for the fact that this vehicle will need to get me to work, and my kids to school, I'd probably just pull the trigger without fretting over it as much. It's knowing in the back of my mind that the future repair and maintenance costs on this are totally unknown, and could be very high that is giving me pause.
Yes - I can relate. For some reason I've always dreamed of owning a BMW 3 Series. Until recently I could have easily afforded the car but just couldn't justify - same reasons you outlined ( I was laid off on 12/31/08). Side note: I lost about 85k in my IRA in November - I couldn't help but think about the brand new BMW 335i I could have bought with that money! Sigh
Sorry to hear about your job loss, that sucks. The car I'm interested in is also a BMW, a 540i. I don't care about the prestige factor, but the car magazines all make BMWs out to be God's own chariot, and Lord knows I love driving.
We are usually pretty frugal, but once in a blue moon, we dream of something big.
For my wife, it's a very expensive watch. She has dreamt of that watch for 10 years and last week I finally bought it for her. But I didn't buy it new. Given the state of the economy, I took advantage of the fact that lots of people are desperate to raise money by getting rid of their stuff. So I was browsing the offerings at an estate (second-hand) jeweler and happened to find the exact watch my wife had been lusting after for years. It was only 1 year old, looked like it had never been worn and worked perfectly. I dropped $4.5K for the watch, about half the price I would have paid in a regular jewelry store. For a while I felt guilty to spend that kind of money in the midst of a recession, but what the heck, when am I going to find another deal like that? Plus it's not like we can't afford it. I also like the fact that those watches hold their value pretty well and can easily be resold in a pinch.
As for me, I want a new couch. Ours is 30 years old and it is getting to be very uncomfortable. I reupholstered it myself 8 years ago (changed everything except the frame and springs), but I think that it's time for something new...
Good point on the resale value of the watch, I'm sure that made it easier. Just thinking about it, I realize that if this was something my wife wanted, I wouldn't even bat an eye. Funny how sometimes we torture ourselves over things that we'd gladly give to someone else.
As for the couch, that doesn't sound like a splurge to me.
Warning Will Robinson!! This could happen to you:
The collection consists of all Chevy Convertibles
Wow, that was amazing. That gentleman must have an unholy amount of money tied up in those beauties. Not an option for me; I'm pretty sure my wife would be loooooong gone before it ever got to that point!
Sometimes it helps to think of time and money as being the same thing. How much earlier could you retire if you had that money? Maybe not at all, but maybe several months.
I know you didn't ask for this... but sometimes I have found that if I can identify what I truly want, and buy THAT (rather than a million little consolation prizes for myself), I end up spending less overall because I am happy and satisfied.
That's a good idea. I'll have to chew on that question (what do I *really* want) a little.
That approach works perfectly for me. Since accepting the fact that I can't afford to buy everything in the world I compare the cost of what I'm considering to the cost of other things including investments and stress reducing cash balances. When I make my choices this way I ALLWAYS get what I want the most and I never feel as though I'm depriving myself of anything.
I too have a weakness for stuff with wheels and include the future residual value of these things when calculating their actual life cycle cost. If at some future date you can sell your desired replacement vehicle for $4,000 more than your current SUV your net cost is nil. I know this ignores opportunity and maintenance costs but it does represent a factor to consider.
Good point, I should factor the residual value into my cost/benefit analysis.
I had been lusting over a GPS . I am directionally challenged and have been known to get lost driving around the block but being frugal I just travel with maps . Well my SO just surprised me with one for my birthday . So now I can turn my lusting elsewhere .
I'll bet your SO has some ideas.
More power to you if you can resist. I succumbed to temptation.
It started out when I got the job last summer that is 3.4 miles away. So I thought maybe a 50cc scooter would be a good commuting vehicle. But for about a 1-mile portion of the commute I need 50 mph uphill, otherwise I'd get run over and a 50 cc engine can't do that. Then I started thinking about a 250 cc Honda motorcycle but they weren't discounting them when gasoline was $4/gallon, and I noticed a 650 Suzuki was only a grand more.
But down the row of motorcycles from the 650 was this beautiful dressed-out Suzuki C90T (1462 cc) touring motorcycle that was heavily discounted.
Agonizing over it for months, and searching E-bay and Craigslist during that time, I bought it a couple of days after Christmas. So now I have this motorcycle that can probably climb 45 degree hills at 90 mph with two very large people on it.
I think that's how rationalization works.
So, you're saying I should aim higher with my purchase? Hmm, a new M5 would be nice...
Are you at least enjoying your new toy? Any buyer's remorse?
I've had that lust from time to time. But as long as my paycheck is a single point of household financial failure in a terrible job market, I have the opposite problem; I have to fight the urge to be an extreme miser and squirrel away every extra cent we have to our name. There's still a little living to be done today.
But I do tend (as mentioned above) to think of large purchases in terms of the amount of extra time I would *have* to work in order to pay for it.
"There's still a little living to be done today". I'm definitely not a miser, but this phrase, or some variation of it, is usually how I start rationalizing a purchase like this.
I've read "Your Money or Your Life", and do try to think of large purchases in terms of hours spent working. Part of my issue there is that my time horizon for retirement is so far off (15+ years) that a month or two doesn't seem like a big deal. Those do add up, of course.
Thanks again, everybody!