the fuck man, you're still living beyond your means.
plus, you didnt even spell out the lease rates....

 

Got news for you... that happens every year. No need to rush into something now...

 

The simple answer is to wait a year and see how the job goes and reassess. You don't need a car, you want a car. At your stage in life you should be addressing needs first, wants come second after you've established a pattern of success.

 

As long as you're still genuinely looking for advice, I'll keep talking to you. But if you're looking for confirmation and discarding what you don't want to hear, you should just say so and stop wasting other people's time.

Having said that... If you're still keeping an open mind, this is going to get ugly.

With all due respect to your co-workers and parents, you have to keep a few things in mind. The first is that the majority of people don't know a thing about managing their own money. We are an impulse-purchase driven economy with a negative savings rate. 6 in 10 Americans don't have any kind of savings for an emergency. 30% are one financial emergency away from ruin. Source

I greatly respect my parents. But I take their advice when its useful and politely nod my head and ignore them when I know their advice isn't any good. Of course I am a little older than you, so I have some perspective now. But the point is that we all tend to think our own circle of family and friends are great, but then 6 in 10 Americans by definition must include some of our circle right?

Also another factor is that you may have made your presentation so inadvertently one sided that your parents agree with you on less than the full facts.

I agree we are talking heads on an internet forum. But I'm telling you things you should be able to take a step back and see for yourself are true. You don't need to take my word for it.


So employee leasing program doesn't apply to you. No huge discounts. Got it.


Irrelevant. I'm not denying the Q50 is a cool car. I recommended it to my colleague. It has the 3.7 VVEL VQ engine and the 7 speed JATCO AT with quick lockup that shifts in less than .5 seconds. I know because I had that engine and transmission in my 370Z. My colleague loves his car and thanks me everyday for the great choice.

BUT

My neighbor recently bought a McLaren MP4-12C and showed me how cool it was. And it is a really really damn cool car. He's been obsessing about it for months and was really ecstatic that he finally got it. Doesn't change the fact that I can't afford one.


Ok. Being very generous here, 2k off MSRP. How does that compare to 11k off MSRP? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Infiniti-Q50-Sport-Sedan-4-Door-/201319551685?forcerrptr=true&hash=item2edf9492c5&item=201319551685

Ok this is valid if family has a use for your car. Although I question how near death your car really is if you're considering passing it/selling it to family.

No offense intended to your grandmother, but she sounds like somebody making an impulse-driven purchase in this situation.

Also I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. Are you admitting that getting the Q50 would tease your grandma with all the latest gadgets into getting a new car. which would be a financial burden on her?


NONE of my cars have ever had a backup camera. I joke because I always seem to be one year short of getting a backup camera on whatever model I get (2005 RL, 2009 370Z). In the interest of disclosure, my 911 has backup sensors and my CL has an automatic reverse down passenger mirror. I use the mirror feature all the time, but not the backup sensors. I work in downtown Houston and parallel park all the time. Yeah sure sometimes I wish I had a backup camera, especially in the truck, but I manage, like the drivers who have gone before me in the past 90 years.

Some of my cars have NAV, some don't. I find Waze more useful.

Leather is nice. Some of my cars have leather. My 2003 Acura CL Type S has leather. I got it for $6,000ish. It also has heated seats.

I had bluetooth in my RL and 370Z. I do find bluetooth handsfree really useful. So I bought a Jabra speaker thing that clips to the sun visor. I loved it so much I bought 4 more and clipped them to all the cars. I think I paid $30 each for them through slickdeals, so $150 total.


So that was a little cheeky but its true. You don't need any of that. Some of it might be nice, but its not necessary, and it is definitely not worth reaching to pay now.

All those fancy luxury features are accessible to you now in a used Lexus IS350 (2nd gen) or 3rd gen Acura TL for under 20k.

Yeah you don't get the automatic cruise control, the lane departure assist, the night vision, and maybe some other stuff but you didn't mention them anyway.

The reason why leasing is such a bad idea is because 3 years from now, when your lease is up, all that money you put into it went to nothing. Let's say you put $20k into your lease. Let's also say your counterpart buys one of those $20k Lexus IS350 I see all over ebay. At the end of the 3 years, you have nothing. He has a car he owns and could probably sell for at least 12k. He could continue to drive it if he wants to. You have to either roll your lease into more payments (really want to pay that long on the same car?) or start a new lease or find another car to buy.

And you will get tired of your car. That's just the reality of driving something day after day. There will always be something new out there. Look at any Ferrari review on youtube. When the 360 came out, it was godlike. It was such a level beyond the F355 it was perfect. It was the pinnacle of motoring. Then the F430 came out and it was godlike. It was so much beyond the 360 it was perfect. Then the 458 came out and it was the ultimate embodiment of motoring ever. I haven't seen 488 reviews yet but I have an idea of what they're going to say.

 

are they supposed to be different? i thought they were the same...

 

I'm here for the new car pics...

 

If you bring up the points made in this thread to your parents/coworkers, what do they say?

 

Long story short: I didn't get the car.

 

Good decision IMO. Of course you need to do what you need to do regardless of what strangers on the internet advise... but I think you made a good call...

Wait it out a bit, settle into the new job, see if your priorities change, then revisit down the road...