SlowTeg

Ultimately as others said, it's all dependent on your financial situation. If you're maxing out your retirement account(s) and saving some additional money on the side, it doesn't matter what your payments are imo. Also, since the OP said he's a DINK, he likely has notably lower expenses than those with kids. With kids you have daycare/nanny costs, possibly private school in the future, college, less time (time is money), etc. I know that if we didn't have kids we'd have a whole lot more disposable income.

Regarding loans, with super low rates as of late, it makes little sense to not finance a car imo. I got a 1.9% 3 yr loan from a credit union, so it made no sense to pay cash. Having the extra liquidity is also nice. For better or worse, we live in a monthly payment society. I know people who are in debt upto their eyeballs, but they make a lot of money as well, so that's their prerogative. Another thing to consider with high dollar car loans is to think about a HELOC. If you have the equity in your house, taking out $100k and having the loan be tax deductible vs not is a smart move. If you have a business, then that opens the door to leases and other options as well for tax advantages..

TofuProductions

It's pretty funny for myself, I guess I'm pretty conservative for my age (I'm about to hit 30 this year).
Coming from a background of family that works for the IRS and/or medical field, I've been brought up to really budget, not to mention my parents both are pretty conservative with their home probably being the biggest of their expenses (paid off - 4500 sf).

While I make pretty good living for myself, I've never wanted to have a car note higher than 350/mo, the only debt I carry is my car note for my 2012 Lexus which is 200/mo and a cell phone bill.
No mortgage, credit score at 814. I feel like I've gotten used to my expenses as I rarely spend more than 300/mo on anything, I pay for my gas with cash as my Lexus is a hybrid and I meal prep my food at home since it goes in line with me being at the gym. I save and/or invest nearly 80% of my income and the money I have left over I just buy small things here and there such as car parts (lol) or motorcycle track time (1098s for now).

But that's just me, my best friend is a tad different, he lives on a somewhat fixed income from the Army but spends a bit more than he should and has barely a credit score to speak of.

If you have your health, a roof over your head and a few of those that you can count on for to be there for you should you ever need it, then you're far richer than you think - that's true wealth.

Sorry for the ramble, Chicago freezing rain days are no fun at the office on MLK day.

blueprint

Just ran some numbers since my GT4 was in for service and they had a blue one in the showroom spec'd almost identical to my GT4. It had PCCB, Buckets and Sport Chrono. They were asking $154k for it but said they were motivated to work a deal with me.

I just could not justify dropping that kind of money at the moment... If i do get a GT3 i'd have to get rid of the GT4. Not something im willing to do right now.

RedCelica

im paying 650/mo on my F150 right now,,,and it sucks If I didnt have a mortgage I'd be comfortable at 1k I guess if the IR was low

CosmosMpower

991.1 GT3 will plummet if the 991.2 GT3 has a manual. I passed on a 14 GT3 loaded with 25K miles for 115 earlier this year.

RedCelica

Wow that's a steal! And I thought this was a slammin' deal: http://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-s...modelCode1=911

white98ls

I struggle with the same thing. It sucks being a finance nerd but also a car guy - the two are constantly at odds! My other love in life is travel, so it's always a tradeoff between a one-time experience you can remember forever vs. a car that you can enjoy a little bit each day.

Example: I recently told my wife that I want an M Performance Exhaust for the M3, which is ~$1,800 used. Her view is that's crazy for some pipes (I can't disagree) and that's like a weekend in Vegas. I acknowledged that, but my reasoning is I plan on keeping the car for many years and it's just about perfect except I'd love an exhaust, and that's something I can enjoy almost every single day. She's cool with it now, but we both agree my student loans need to get paid off first!
Yep - that's my mental block as well - when my payment looks more like a rent/mortgage payment than a car. The even crazier thing is people who lease cars at $1k+. I just saw a commercial for a Range Rover lease - $899 and $6k due at signing. Probably without options. And then you have to turn the thing in after all that!

Although I will say if you buy smart, it can go the other way. I could totally justify $1k/mo payments for a GT3/4 that I feel highly confident will not depreciate, and in fact may even appreciate. To me that's better than $300-400/mo on a vanilla car that's boring as hell and will be worth pennies on the dollar when I'm done with it.

There are three elements to how much a car "costs" to purchase: 1) Interest paid, 2) Opportunity cost, 3) Depreciation. Depreciation is a big hitter. If you can get a car that depreciates very little, and pay <2.5% interest, for a car that you really love IMO it's usually worth the opportunity cost of tying up that capital.
x2, that's basically inflation. And if you can't make more than 1.9% annualized in the stock market over a 4-5 year period... well, that's pretty sad.
Why do you do this, and why does it matter that your Lexus is a hybrid? You seem pretty fiscally responsible, why not get a credit card with 4-5% cash back on gas? That's free money.

blueprint

$115k for a 2014 991.1 GT3!?!

Thats a smoking deal... Why didn't you get it?

blueprint

Currently the market price for a 997.2 GT3... Some are still in the $120k range.

991.1 GT3's i dont see dipping below $130k for another year or two maybe.

TofuProductions

The weird thing is, I guess this stuck with me since I was first started driving and only had my debit card, whenever I used the debit card at the pumps, it wouldn't deduct my amount out until days later, and granted since at that age (I think I was 17 or so..) I didn't have much of an established income on my own, and I was more or less new to budgeting efficiently, so I decided since then to just pay cash as I knew it was money already 'spent' when I pulled it out of the ATM or bank.

Of course now with my credit cards, I could open up another one at let's say a Shell or something, which like you stated, makes perfect sense. I'm just a creature of habit which is the only reason why I have not - ideally it would work out quite well to get those rewards back as my commute is the same year around, with a tad more in the summer due to driving the S2000 off and on parallel with the Lexus, and with the Lexus consuming far less gas than the S2000.

All in all, habit, as more than anything, but I've yet to research much on which gas card is better in terms of rewards (if any).. Probably something I'll start doing!