Chris from Cali

You only live once...

Just this weekend, a 35-year old Scottish soccer player collapsed and died during a game. As a 35-year old nowhere near that level of fitness, I don't put much stock in living to a ripe old age.... I put enough away into savings for my plans, I don't smoke/drink/dress extravagantly/etc. Those offsets more than cover my car payment.

If we want to get into controversial topics, let's see how many of those $400K+/year folks are doing it completely above-board....

MartyB

Fiscal responsibility is foreign to way over half of the population, particularly in our country, and delayed gratification is a concept many don't get or don't want to get. I don't understand the self-righteousness of some - no individual is being judged here. In a discussion such as this, I think there may be some truth to "the guilty dog barks the loudest". The questions posed seem to me to be fair and relavent. Surely many people second guess whether they should spend 100k on a car- perhaps this thread will inspire a handful of potential buyers to make a more honest assessment of their finances than they would have otherwise made. I personally think a $400k annual salary as a threshold might be overly conservative. My income fluctuates - I've had very good years and mediocre years, but my overall tendancy to save money, not change my cars/toys like my underwear and to make smart buying decisions gives me a little more leverage than some with slightly higher average incomes.

While I do get the "seize the day" attitude and I realize that there may be no tomorrow, I also realize that I could live to be a hundred, miserable without any resources, dependant on the government and a burden on my kids, etc. Without trying to make any judgments or set any definitions here, I do think that you should be in a position to EASILY pay cash for these cars before buying them, unless you are single, no kids, and have a bright economic future.

Rick in Colorado

MartyB, you made my point much better than I did. While it's true that some people drop dead at 35, planning around that scenario is a fool’s errand.

For those where a particular nerve was struck, me thinks thou doest protest too much. [For those of you who aren't students of Shakespeare, that means that you looked in the mirror and said "oops that may be me that's being described"] - basically a 16th century version of the guilty dog.

All good stuff. Let's just not have Porsche's version of the subprime meltdown.

BTW, "ratty house" was a poor choice of words - I apologize for that. I was worried that people were under spending on an (historically) appreciating asset to afford a highly depreciative one.

Tinluver

Why don't you start a finance class where people who are interested in your point of views can go?
Maybe a Shakespeare workshop would be better??

NYNick

OMG, you guys! I'm with Coochas! How's the Koolaid? It's a car. It's my car! I love it! That's it.

abe

You don't need 400k to get a porsche.....75k, lease a used car for 1200 a month and you are in business.
Personally, I don't think its the financially responsible thing to do....but I see it everyday.
abe

911Dave

As do I. Threads like "how did you afford your Porsche" and "how did you pay for your car, cash or..." and "what kind of watches do you own" are all disgusting attempts to measure yourself against others. This thread is a pissing contest like all the others. Some of you guys have disclosed how much your house is worth, and have hinted at what kind of income you have. Stop it! It's nobody's damn business but yours, and anybody who wants to know what you make or how much your house is worth has an immature fixation on materiality.

And I'm tired of you rich guys telling people they need to be able to pay cash "easily and with no pain" for their car or else they have no business owning one. You know how that translates? To me, it says "I don't like it when people of lesser means than myself can own the same car I do". $400k in income? You must be crazed. If you can afford the payment, you can afford the car. Full stop.

Edgy01

The only real sickness I find here is people WRITING about Porsches and not DRIVING them right now! As for me, I think I'm going to head up the coast for a few hours! Sunny and in the upper 60s. (But we have ash in the air from the summer's brushfires. The hardtop is on. I'm going to go play "coupe" today. Get off your computers! (Unless you're in the Northeast under 3 feet of the white stuff,--Coochas!)

Holli82

+1

For all of you guys snowed in I'll take a couple of laps for you.

Spend money like you want on what you want. If you earn the money, YOU decide what you want to buy and what YOU can afford.

Let's see....I'm thinking about buying a house and investing in stocks. Let me check with the guys on Rennlist first.

Rick in Colorado

Just out of curiosity, many people have mentioned a $400K annual income requirement - what is the source of that citation?

p-cardriver

A comment I had posted earlier in the thread last night and deleted this morning after re-reading and deciding that it was OT to this thread. I think this is about Maslow, not philosophies on financing cars.

p-cardriver.

abe

I kind of agree with 911Dave....and I may even be a little guilty too. Maybe we should rename this the
the Darwin Hierarchy instead of the Maslow Hierarchy.

nyca

well, I replied to it in post #16 - but the original comment appears to be gone now.

geof

It's too bad this thread has devolved to "when can you afford a Porsche" and moved away from relating such a car to Maslow's need hierarchy. Yet another money discussion doesn't add much, especially since this has been covered before and the topic of "money" always arouses both complex and primal emotions. But a discussion relating to Maslow's need hierarchy would be VERY interesting IMO. Surely the Porsche marketing department has thought about this a lot- I'd like to be a fly-on-the-wall in some of those discussions.

How many of you have had a creative epiphany while driving your P-car? Or while catching a nice sunset on a mountain ridge road after a splendid P-car drive? I've had many- sometimes during a drive and sometime afterwards when I am relaxed from the drive and my mind is filled with images.

How many of you look at your car and feel a surge of pleasure, perhaps in the same way you do when you look at nice architecture or a masterpiece work of art?

How many of you like the feeling of connection with the heritage of the 911?

How many of you have family connections leading to this? (My late father had two 911's- When I bought mine my wife commented that it was perhaps a way to help me connect with my dead father- there is truth to that)

I think the pleasurable experience of driving this car, along with some of the other things above, are esoteric but very real items that Porsche is trying to sell when they market the car. You have to admit- they are doing this very successfully. Contrast this to just "basic specs" like horsepower, 0-60mph times, torque curves, and so forth, where Porsches are no as longer exceptional as they once were.

Soulteacher

Interesting how this thread moved from Maslow, to von Mises, to Marx, to Hofstede, while touching all kinds of other stuff in between...

Ultimately, different people have different thresholds of financial uncertainty, so I doubt we'll find an agreement on this.

It all sounds very German to me... over there, everybody sticks their noses into other people's business all the time and assumes they have the right to tell the other what they should do, and they get angry if people don't do what they recommended.

I don't think the German way was Marty's or Rick's intention, though. The issues of fiscal responsibility and delayed gratification and need vs want satisfaction (and alike) are relevant topics, particularly given that consumer debt is rated as the second strongest threat to the U.S. economy (ahead of terrorism, by the way).

Most of the people in this forum will never run into any problems paying off their debt and building some kind of wealth. Most wealth components are nonmonetary in nature anyway (e.g., freedom, health, happiness, safety, intellectual growth, etc.).

But we still explain the significance of monetary issues and their impact on monetary and nonmonetary wealth to our business students, even though we'll ultimately leave it up to them whether they follow our advice or not. Most do not, as the rapid increase in so-called $30,000 Millionaires shows. It doesn't matter to me personally, as I have left Germany and its mindset long behind. But one day I might be affected by the macroeconomic implications.