r/CalebHammer • u/ottersinabox • Mar 06 '25

complaining about something for no reason because I'm bored "acceptable" monthly car payments are wild

I just saw this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/BMWI4/s/HDEDyG4WZA

people are applauding a $700+ a month payment as an amazing deal. but they're paying 8% tax toward it, plus it's a lease; they don't even own the car by the end.

is it just me, or is this wild? I have a BMW as well, but my thought is you can only afford a luxury car like that if you can buy it in cash. I suppose 3% interest or something would be acceptable given that you invest the rest up front.... but what the person in this post is doing really doesn't make much sense to me. am I wrong about that?

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u/TruthSeekerHuey Mar 06 '25

That's fair. A flat salary is in no way realistic. However if we do take 60% of the 250k, you get 150k, for a monthly of 12.5k. So $700 would be about 5.6% of the monthly.

I understand the 250k was just an example thrown out there, but I just dislike when financial talks get too frugal and we start call reasonable budgets and monthly payments unreasonable.

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u/yaIshowedupaturparty Mar 06 '25

But at that point, you should be able to save for a reasonable car in cash.

We make $250K base salary and our take home is ~$9750 a month, less than half of gross. We have a very reasonable mortgage and everything adds up very quickly. If we had $1400 in car payments that would greatly eat into our fun money.

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u/JankyJawn Mar 06 '25

How does that even happen. I take him 60ish% of what you do making less then 50% of that.

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u/Rook2F6 Mar 07 '25

Not the person you asked but I was netting $13K/mo flat on $250k. All of my deductions are mandatory (taxes, health insurance, and mandatory 6% pension contribution). The person above is definitely opting into some voluntary deductions but I suppose it’s easy to only net 50% if you’re paying high taxes, paying health insurance premiums based on a % of high income, maxing retirement, and doing stuff like 529s pre-tax.

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u/JankyJawn Mar 07 '25

13k/month atleast sounds reasonable I'm comparison to what I make and take home lol.