Those leases sound pricey. I run a 6 yr old merc clk (had it for 2 yrs) on about 2.5k per annum. Prior to that a it was a 5yr old Porsche Boxster S for about 3.5k, buying and selling in one year always hurts!

Seriously 4.2k for a Mondeo or similar is just madness.

Usually with car buying – and as neatly demonstrated by the responses in this thread – people take a position and then seek to justify it. So, new or second hand is basically pre-decided.

But the OP’s question was about what percentage of income to spend. I can’t give you a number, but when we were paying for two cars, I think we were about 10% of net income. One of the cars was on HP, so is now paid for and that’s left the other (PCP) at about 5% of net income (not incl final balloon payment).

TBH I’d like a new, bigger car made in Gernany or Japan, but the rest of my commitments and the other ways we save and spend money means I don’t feel brave enough to go for such a thing. And we’re going to spend money on our house next year, so I’d rather pay it towards the mortgage and wait for a payrise to cover the cost of new car payments.

A cheap car isn’t going to be as safe or nice compared to a £350 per month car.

Given one of the £350 a month options was a Mondeo, I suspect my 08 Mondeo (current model apart from a facelift) is just as safe. Nice? Well I suppose it depends on what value you put on a new car smell.

Usually with car buying – and as neatly demonstrated by the responses in this thread – people take a position and then seek to justify it. So, new or second hand is basically pre-decided.

Chicken, egg? Am I attempting to justify my choice of s/h by pointing out it’s significantly cheaper, or is my position s/h because it’s significantly cheaper? Or am I simply justifying the reason for wanting to spend less money on a car (because as pointed out above, people seem happy to piss away silly amount of money on cars, when they could have far more fun spending it on other things)?

Funkydunc – out of interest where did you get your lease deal? I thought my work’s offerings were good value but perhaps they’re not?!

Usually with car buying – and as neatly demonstrated by the responses in this thread – people take a position and then seek to justify it. So, new or second hand is basically pre-decided.

Demonstrated best by the OP, to be fair.

😀

^ hmmm

Not really, I am open to the idea of not getting shiny shiny hence asking what’s a reasonable amount to spend. I’m well aware that my own thoughts probably aren’t those most logical hence asking for perspective!

Even if you haven’t got savings you should be able to get a loan for a cheaper car if you can get a £350 lease or hp deal, thus making the idea of a £5K car viable.

RopeyReignRider – Member
^ hmmm

Not really, I am open to the idea of not getting shiny shiny hence asking what’s a reasonable amount to spend. I’m well aware that my own thoughts probably aren’t those most logical hence asking for perspective!

Do you not think £4200 a year is money down the drain and wasteful to simply have a Mondeo outside the house?

Do you not think £4200 a year is money down the drain and wasteful to simply have a Mondeo outside the house?

People just seem to think about money differently, like having a mobile on contract even though it’s clearly more expensive than buying a handset and PAYG.

My priorities are getting money off the mortgage and doing the house up (lets not mention bikes), so not having a new car or iPhone 9 are easy sacrifices to make.

People just seem to think about money differently

There’s a reason car leases and mobile phone contracts are quoted with monthly rather than annual cost.

(personally I have a mobile contract, but handset bought separately, and it works out cheaper than PAYG for my usage).

These days everything is advertised as per month to lull you into the “i can afford that” mindset.

Sofa – no problem – 50 quid a month next 4 years

Furniture – 50 quid a month for next 4 years

New kitchen – 300 a month for next 5 years

Car – 300 quid a month the next 5 years + balloon payment

House 1500 a month for the next 25 years…..

A lot can happen in 6 months and your still liable for all of these payments. Each on its own seems affordable but soon they add up to a monthly paycheck and you find your self un able to cope financially with surprises life throws at you.

Ewan mcgregor got it right.

Fyi the reason i dont give a % of my wage is that its not what i can afford that is the limiting factor in my car choice – its what i can afford to see ruined by other folk. Doesnt matter where i park it and how careful i am to park away from other cars , more often than not i find someones opened a door into it , hit it with a trolley etc etc ….if it was a lease or an hp i might be inclined to fix that ….. On my cheap banger i just leave it. My last car i bought , it came with a dents and scratches inevery panel , looks like father teds car, was over a grand cheaper and much lower milage/fully stamped book than anything comparible , and saves me being precious about it when it gets a new ding.

@trailrat concur! Even though I drive a second hand £5k car I still park it away from the ratrace at the supermarkets, although no matter how far I park away some three door heap always parks right next to me with little room to get in the drivers door. Sods law 😮 Usually this 3 door heap will have a kids seat in the back requiring much extra large door edge ding on my car action while MILF tries to extract the kid from the back.

Theres no respect for others property nowadays 😆

1. Kids don’t mean you need a bigger car. When ours were younger we had a Fiesta, friends get on fine with a Yaris as their ‘big’ car, my Mam had five kids and a Fiesta. Babies are actually very small.

2. Old cars are fine. Our current car is a 2005 Corolla Verso (2 big dogs = big boot needed), which cost us £2k with 103000 miles on the clock. (We recently passed 111111 miles, which was very exciting.) An old car means it doesn’t matter when you drag one side of it down the concrete wall of a multi-storey ramp. At its last MOT it needed a £40 tyre.

Renting a car boggles my mind. £4k would get you a car that is cheap to maintain and reliable… granted probably not going to make the neighbours look at you with envious eyes but who really cares about that anyway? I’d rather people spent their cash on keeping up appearances and save mine to move somewhere nicer or go on more holidays.

I mainly drive a 53 plate boringo and it’s most expensive bill is the tax each year (£225 for my model). It’s never needed anything and I don’t think anyone could say it’s more unreliable than a new more electrical reliant car.

My misses has a tdi polo thats falling apart slowly and is turning out to be costly so it’s going to get run into the ground now so i’m not convinced buying something like a gti polo or golf is a safe bet.. i’d go more simple.

I think the reason you ask this question is that you probably like the idea of a shiny car but you don’t have a big wad of cash to splash on one. I’d say £3-4k would get you something decent for the next 3-4 years and then with the cash you’ve saved you can buy another then and the current car will owe you nothing.

The other advantage of a car as special as a berlingo is that tyres cost about £50 for a decent brand. The roads near us I couldn’t get more performance from a bigger engine and I’m not commuting 100s of a miles a day so there is little need for more comfort.

I think the magic number you were looking for was 10% of what you earn is a suitable figure for a car (so said some stw god on here last year?!)

I basically look at car ownership as luxury money, i.e. how much money are you prepared to put aside and never get anything back? Depreciation is so huge that old, reliable second hand cars make a lot of sense. There are loads of 10+ year old Japanese cars that I would be happy to drive. Previous car that we owned (Passat TDI) was 9 years and 93,000 miles old and has been as reliable as the car we currently own (bought less than 1 year and 8,500 miles old).

Unfortunately I do not put my money where my mouth is anymore in terms of buying cheap. The other half was keen to have something ‘reliable’ and that she wanted to drive. From savings we paid £19.5k for a 1 yr old BMW estate. The new price was over £33k, so in the first year the original owner lost near £14k on a car they didn’t even like that much. For £20k, I was hoping for a great ownership experience. Whilst it is good to drive, in less than 3 years it has had 2 bits of major work done under warranty. A friend has had the same issue rectified on an identical, but older model, at over £4k… Dealership service has also been mediocre, as we were not the original purchasers.

Because the repairs would have been so expensive if we had had to pay, I will spend circa £400 on a each year on a warranty extension, as practically nothing can get repaired for less than a few hundred pounds if you go direct to BMW.

So now I think if we are spending those sorts of amounts on a car, I would rather either go cheap and live a stress free existence (the last car we owned cost us £3.5k), or just bite the bullet and chose something expensive but brand new that I can whine at the dealer about if it goes wrong. Either way, it is best to see the purchase price plus running costs as money down the toilet.

At least hookers and coke would be fun.

RRR – Its through the NHS.

Maybe see how you get on with junior using your current car?
Put whatever money you intended to spend in a savings account.
Should your current car be fine keep saving.
In the future you will be able to buy a car with cash,all in and not any kind of finance/loan/whatever.
You will also be safe from the evil money grabbing bastards should anything happen to your current financial situation.

Just to clarify, my current car wasn’t new when I took out the HP (it was 4yrs old, 11k and 1/3rd the original price!), it’s now 6 yrs old. I’m not desperate to get a new new car but HP on a couple of years old car is again looking like a tempting compromise.

My current car is worth a little bit more than the outstanding HP and I can return it at any point without penalty. I’m just tying to get a feel for what others do as the I think the work lease scheme has distorted my view!