I'd be interested to know the proportion of people who own their car outright versus those with hp/personal loans/credit card balances that they set against the value of the S2000

 

Why?

Zero do you ever talk about anything but money and debt?

 

Weve done this before if memory serves havent we ?

R.

 

I think we have but I've forgotten the result. Could do a poll. I imagine the vast majority of us have some form of debt related to the car and that only a small proportion own it outright.

 

Walked in, took the test drive, came back, did a deal, paid on switch, drove it home 1 hour later

 

The reason I posed the question was that one of my mates has a brother who is going through a bad patch at the moment feeling that he isn't achieving enough for his age. He's managed to get himself into flatland but drives an older car. He says he sees people of a similar age to himself driving

 

In my case, things changed when I got a company car. I no longer had to finance a family car myself, so I did the mid life thing & bought the S2000 with a PX on my existing car & cash.

Mrs MLC-PM has never forgiven me

 

[QUOTE=zero_to60,Sep 15 2004, 11:02 AM] The reason I posed the question was that one of my mates has a brother who is going through a bad patch at the moment feeling that he isn't achieving enough for his age. He's managed to get himself into flatland but drives an older car. He says he sees people of a similar age to himself driving

 

Basically I told him that it's all about perception....reality can be different

 

How old is he? The ability to buy this sort of car didn't come to me until I reached (ahem) 40, and even then it was a very deliberate thing to do. I had to really want it to make it happen. Up to that point, my family was my priority, but they are grown up now (more or less!). Everyone has different priorities in life.

The other thing to realise is the huge levels of debt a lot of "young" people are getting themselves into. I know people with several credit cards up to the limit, and they have huge mortgages, and loans etc. I couldn't live like that.

I think you have to look at things as a whole, not just think others have more 'toys' than you.

Of course, then there's the depreciation on the car to pay for..... something he won't have so much of on an older car, so who's better off really?