Jay911

How much do you think your net worth needs to be, to justify the cost of a new TTS? I am having this conversation with my wife and its not going well. 3-4?

rk-d

Hard question. Debt/income and liquidity are important variables.

DBC

If you need to have a conversation, this^^^^^^

TTSPete

net worth doesn't include debt

gungriffin

Whatever the hell you deem it to be! Who uses what random internet people say to justify a MAJOR purchase? I would say the answers will be anywhere between enough to make the down payment to $10mm.

Depending on how much this car is driven, depreciation will probably be anywhere between 1-4k a month. That will by far and away be your biggest expense. Tires, consumables and maintenance will be about 50 cents a mile depending on how hard you are on the car. So 500 miles a month might cost you about $1500-2000. This would also probably require no taxes paid.

Is that something you can stomach? I would also point out that if you are wondering if you make enough, you probably don't (or are fiscally smart enough to know you aren't there). Why not get a 2014 TTS with a few miles for ~$125k with a CPO warranty? Saves you about 75k. Makes the decision a bit easier to me.

Hawkeye911

Very subjective.

A gentleman who owns a Rolls Royce / Bentley dealership once told me they have two types of clients.... (1) high net worth and (2) high income.

Age is certainly a factor. If you are younger and have high income, I would expect a lower net worth to be more typical and reasonable.

If you are closer to retirement or already retired, then net worth is much more important (factoring in your other costs and how much of this is actually earning you returns as well).

You mention $3-4MM.... this seems to be a conservative number to justify a TTS in my humble opinion.

911's are often "milestone" cars. If you've been working hard to achieve a goal and have succeeded, then I hope your wife supports you my friend! (You have my vote of approval!)

rk-d

Good point. Plenty of 911 buyers are HENRYs (High Earner, Not Rich Yet) and that's ok as long as debt is under control and a solid nest egg established with aggressive investment into retirement (at least in my opinion).

That said, it's all about priorities. You can't take it with you - as long as your affairs are in order, what's the point of working your *** off if you can't enjoy it?

parabola19

my attitude is drive fast today if you can, tomorrow might not come.

ipse dixit

$1.00

Karl911

THERE IS NO LUGGAGE RACK ON HEARST

ace37

We're HENRYs in our early thirties with a slightly negative net worth. I made a small 5% down payment and financed my new TT with our credit union. (Side note: auto loans are stupid cheap right now.)

Would adding definition to your financial plans and goals help? We needed concrete goals and plans based on conservative assumptions before I could assess a luxury purchase like the car. It's much easier to make a good judgment when you are able to compare it to reasonable and realistic alternatives / opportunity costs.

unotaz

If you live in America, then you don't need any net worth to go for a Turbo. As long you can afford the monthly payment, you are good to go. At least, this is how I see what most people do. I often see 300k worth of cars in a 1 million home. Doesn't make any sense to me but to each his own.

I am, however, very conservative when it comes to discretionary spending. My cars will always be less than 5% of my net worth. YMMV. If it appreciate in value, great. If it goes down, who cares?

rk-d

That's the problem with rules of thumb. There are too many exceptions.

I know you didn't mean to make an absolute statement there, but to be fair, <5% of total net worth is awfully restrictive for most situations. A person with million dollar net worth earning $500,000 a year would only allow himself and his wife to drive used Hondas.

Similarly, a million dollar home in New York is a totally different animal than a million dollar home in flyover country. There are parts of this country where there are literally NO homes worth over a million dollars.

There is the old 20/4/10 rule -- Down payment of at least 20%, finance no more than 4 years and make sure cumulative monthly car expenses do not exceed 10% of your income.

My garage exceeds the <5% net worth rule by a large margin. But, on the other hand, I could pay off my house and cars tomorrow if I had to. Money is cheap nowadays, it doesn't make sense to not live with some debt.

NVRANUF

Unemployed and on a fixed income, so buying a Porsche Turbo S made perfect sense to me!

Mark Dreyer

Bill Gates is on a fixed income also. Albeit fixed very high. :-)