Your income to car ratio

[Disoblige]

I like how with some basic math skills, car value look-up and you get a very decent ball park of people's salaries on here

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by Disoblige
I like how with some basic math skills, car value look-up and you get a very decent ball park of people's salaries on here

Obviously I'm another Beyond Millionaire! Our civic may only be worth $15g, but the restoration on the Goat cost us 1/4 million, lol.

[Tomaz]

My payments are about 15% of my monthly income. The car to purchase outright brand new is 1/2 of my yearly income.

[Kloubek]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok


Pretty sure he meant he just saved up enough money through flipping cars to buy his current one outright.

Bingo.

Some people hate referring to a vehicle as an asset because it depreciates. But I was able to purchase them for good deals, sometimes fix them up, and flip them for a profit 95% of the time. At the end, I was sitting with a C5 Corvette, FD RX7 and Audi TT in my driveway and all were paid for.

...then we found out we had a baby coming.... then everything got fucked up. Now all we have is my CX9 (familymobile) and my wife's Hyundai Accent.

[XylathaneGTR]

Purchased a few years ago for about 8% of my current gross annual salary. At the time, I was a student earning a whopping $0/month and the vehicle was purchased entirely from savings, right before I started internship.

I'd like to keep her for a few more years and continue to dump money into my home, savings and other things that I actually enjoy. If my girlfriend and I end up living together or something like that, we'd probably just go into single car sharing, at which point her payments would be around 4% of our monthly income (full purchase price was around 12% our current gross annual income).

I remember when I was a stupid kid with no expenses and living at home and I was thinking "yeah...I could purchase a car for 1.5+ years of my current income" (see signature below). Oh...how things have changed.

[A790]

Payments are about 15% of my monthly income, or roughly 1/3 my annual income (to purchase outright).

[msommers]

Originally posted by Kloubek


Bingo.

Some people hate referring to a vehicle as an asset because it depreciates. But I was able to purchase them for good deals, sometimes fix them up, and flip them for a profit 95% of the time. At the end, I was sitting with a C5 Corvette, FD RX7 and Audi TT in my driveway and all were paid for.

That's impressive! I wish I had the patience for that (and probably the market know-how as well). As soon as I put something on Kijiji, the idiots seem to come out of the woodwork.

[FraserB]

0% right now but will change in a few months. Car I buy will be about 24% of annual salary. So payments would be about 7% of gross maybe.

[Strider]

Originally posted by Disoblige
I like how with some basic math skills, car value look-up and you get a very decent ball park of people's salaries on here

Get out of my head! Exactly what I was thinking... lol

Originally posted by variable_x
We got a 95 integra and a 99 camry between my wife and I, so we are sitting at about 4% of our income. The house on the other side...

So conservatively, using current market prices for those cars, ~$4k-$5k each, $8k/0.04 = $200k
*adds variable_x to the Beyond Ballers ... wait ... slightly above average list.



Not sure why everybody keeps saying 0% and payments = x% monthly... OP was asking about total purchase price/gross annual income. Otherwise you can't compare since there's different financing terms.

[black300]

0% bought all my cars outright but that will change once I get a new pickup or car on lease so I can write it off for my company.

[Manhattan]

Originally posted by Strider
Not sure why everybody keeps saying 0% and payments = x% monthly... OP was asking about total purchase price/gross annual income. Otherwise you can't compare since there's different financing terms.

It also doesn't matter much how much the current value of the car is. More concerned with the original purchase price relative to your gross income at the time. If you bought a 25K car 10 years ago while you were earning 50K but the car is worth less than 10K today and you're earning double what you used to make then the ratio drops off the radar. I'm interested in the decision process on what people think they can afford when buying a car.

[colinxx235]

Yah I don't figure how you can really say 0%.

I just bought a car that would represent a pretty large % of my yearly income.

But I'd still go through and try to calculate over a 4 year period how much it will cost me a month (depreciation/repairs) to determine its average % value against my monthly or yearly income.

I figure if I keep it 4 years personally I'm looking at about 8-10% of my current earnings. By the time 4 years hit my earnings should be quite a bit higher and reflect a lower cost.

[carson blocks]

I love cars, but don't like debt and I actually have a sick love for cheap beaters. I almost feel bad when I have to drive my junk in to the company parkade downtown.

Daily driver SUV = ~0.625%
Old truck= ~0.208%

*edit* I did marth my decimal point.

I'm not a "Beyond Baller", my vehicles are just that cheap and I love them more than cars I've had costing 50-75x that much. I'm that guy who would rather have a handful of interesting, fun beaters than one nice newer bland but sensible car.

[msommers]

Originally posted by Manhattan


It also doesn't matter much how much the current value of the car is. More concerned with the original purchase price relative to your gross income at the time. If you bought a 25K car 10 years ago while you were earning 50K but the car is worth less than 10K today and you're earning double what you used to make then the ratio drops off the radar. I'm interested in the decision process on what people think they can afford when buying a car.

Agreed. 0% to me indicates you got it for free, which may be the case but probably not what the poster intended.

[chibwack]

The cars paid off now (thank you hail claim!) and I'm gonna drive it until it dies, but when it does I'm thinking I'll just set aside 3-4% of my gross monthly income for a lease and do that from then on out. Cheaper, always have a newish vehicle, can't go wrong!

Then I can save up and buy cash a nice 60's cuda or vette or something.

When I was paying, the car pmt was ~8.5% of my gross salary, which was just a little more than I was comfortable with. Insurance brought that up to around 11% probably.

As far as value, its currently probably only worth 8% of my gross (since I'm not fixing the hail...would have been 16% before).

When I bought it, I was financed to the nines
Street bike - 22.5%
Race bike - 6.25%
Dirt bike - 8.5%
Car - 28.75%
(no house, no dependents, free rent and way too much money for 18 y/o. safe to say I hate debt now)

[pheoxs]

I own everything outright but in terms of valie

My FD + Jetta + Street bike = 35% of what I gross yearly

[Disoblige]

Originally posted by Manhattan


The ratio is the price of car at purchase as a percentage of your gross income at the time regardless if you're making payments or paying with cash.

[ExtraSlow]

I've bought vehicles that were ~30% of my annual income twice now. Guess it would be less than that if you include my wife's income.

But in terms of payment, highest I've ever been was 6% of my salary, I'm at zero now. I hate payments.

Mortgage is another story, I've been as high as 50% of my net income going to mortgage. That's not fun

[jaysas_63]

15-20% cash is where I feel comfortable (not including costs associated with the car, i.e. insurance, gas, parking, maintenance, etc)

[Strider]

Originally posted by carson blocks
I love cars, but don't like debt and I actually have a sick love for cheap beaters. I almost feel bad when I have to drive my junk in to the company parkade downtown.

Daily driver SUV = ~0.0625%
Old truck= ~0.0208%

No, I didn't get the decimal place wrong, and no I'm not a "Beyond Baller", my vehicles are just that cheap and I love them more than cars I've had costing 50-75x that much. I'm that guy who would rather have a handful of interesting, fun beaters than one nice newer bland but sensible car.

Say what you will, but I'm still inclined to believe you marthed your decimal.

0.0625% = 0.000625

Therefore, even if you have a $500 daily driver...
$500/0.000625 = $800,000. Definitely enough for entrance into the Beyond Baller club.