Oppo: Lets Play a Game.

"Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis" (Dwhite95)
04/22/2016 at 01:53 • Filed to: None

In about a year I graduate, the GP will (most likely) be handed down to one of my sisters and I will be in the need of a car. Baring any major fuck ups this summer the place I’ve had an internship last summer and this summer already promised me a job that would net me about 50-60k a year. If other options prevail I could get up to 80k plus bonus’s. There is a very real chance I would move to a large city too. What would recommend that I buy/lease* at such a time?

I’m thinking Focus/Fiesta ST. But I’m curious what you guys would think.

*Single male, no family obligations. At least at the moment...

DISCUSSION (24)

AddictedToM3s - Drives a GC > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 01:56

Kinja'd!!!

997 911. (Yes, I know that’s a turbo but it looked so damn sexy I couldn’t resist posting it)

CRider > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 02:01

Kinja'd!!!

2017 Ford F-250 4x4 crew cab diesel.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 02:01

Focus ST: I’ll hopefully be in a similar situation in a few months, I’m looking at ST’s.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > CRider
04/22/2016 at 02:08

Completely forgot this reveal, it was really early.

CRider > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch
04/22/2016 at 02:25

Ford seems to be revealing everything two years out. GT, Raptor, Super Duty, Focus RS.

Alfalfa > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 02:26

My personal opinion is to save the more practical cars for when you have a family. Get a new Mustang or Toyobaru. Or even a Cayman or F-Type if you want to spend more.

Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis > CRider
04/22/2016 at 02:27

That is an interesting choice I was not expecting.

CompactLuxuryFan > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 02:34

As a recent college grad, I’ll say 60k becomes nothing once you have real adult obligations (taxes and rent!!! But also food, trips, clothes, electronics, Netflix home expenses, parking, insurance, car washes, etc, etc forever). The wise thing to do would be get a used Corolla and sock away as much money as possible so you can retire in a somewhat timely manner. Now, obviously you’re an auto enthusiast so I’d say it’s fine for you to splurge a little on car stuff, as long as you keep in mind that it’s a luxury for which you are paying a lot of money! I say shoot for maximizing smiles per dollar while keeping maintenance pain to a minimum. If you end up with a driving commute (which you should try to avoid even if you like driving), then a new (or lightly used) car might make sense, and you really can’t beat the Fiesta and Focus. They end up being very close in price, too. Tough choice. If you’re lucky and you end up not needing a car for your daily activities, I’d say spend under 6k on a fun used car that you love. It’d be an E46 3 series or Miata for me. 50 year old you is gonna be soooo happy you started investing $400/mo so early.

BLCKSTRM > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 02:35

Lots of people (including yourself) saying ST.

Money you put away right now - at the beginning of your career - is what will grow the most. There is plenty of time to be irresponsible with money later in life. Be smart with your money right now. Don’t buy a brand new depreciation hole.

In a similar vein, you have the rest of your life to be terribly responsible with a family-hauler-ish hot hatch. Now is the time to be completely irresponsible as far as your personal transportation goes.

In fact, these two things work together right now because there are so many good, fairly reliable cars that are bottoming out on the depreciation curve and just becoming collectible.

S2000. E36/E46/E9X M3 or E34/E39 M5 (depending on how old you like ‘em / how much you like to wrench / how much power you need).

Late 90's NSX / Supra / RX-7 (again, depending on your tolerance for pain).

Consider an R32 Skyline - it’s sure as hell not going to happen AFTER you get married and start having kids.

If you take care of any of these, they’ll all be worth AT LEAST what you paid for them when the time comes to upgrade to that hot hatch.

And if you go the M3/M5 sedan route, you won’t even have a shadow of an excuse to get rid of it.

TheD0k_2many toys 2little time > CRider
04/22/2016 at 02:35

As OPPO’s Powerstroke lover i aprove this message.

Chuckles > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 02:50

I fully support the idea of getting something fun to drive, but I suggest keeping it affordable. 50k is a great starting point for a career, but if you can stash some of the money and buy used, that means you’ll gave more money down the road for a truly awesome vehicle. A used ST might not be a bad choice though. I opted for the Miata old enough to buy a beer route.

My bird IS the word > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 02:52

May want to wait. A lot of really nice muscle cars are going to deprecate in the next few years. Right now it’s about at the ‘06s. But hot hatchbacks are a good choice. If you're anything like me you will soon be itching for something more ridiculous.

CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 02:54

Keep it affordable. Used and fun. You never know what comes up.

F40LM > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 03:08

You should be spending 10-15% of your pre-tax income on your car+insurance. Let’s call your salary 60k b/c bonuses are unreliable and if you don’t get it you’re stuck paying for a car that you can’t really afford.
So that’s 6k per year or $500/month. Assuming $80/month for insurance, that’s leaves you with $420/month for the car. I hope that helps you out.

What are you looking for in a car?

slipperysallylikespenguins > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 03:16

Echoing some of the other commenters, be responsible and get something used and reasonably cheap. 60K a year will be 40-45k take home after taxes for a young and single guy. Then rent, food, insurance, fun, and dating take a lot of that. Pay off your student loans as soon as possible if you have any and invest in a property.

I’ve seen quite a few people who went out and bought brand new sportscars and mostly trucks when they got a good job and then lost their jobs and then their brand new cars and their credit. Wait till you are very secure in your career before you get crazy with your money. But I would recommend a couple year old Mustang, Camaro, FoST, WRX, or BRZ.

Kailand09 > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 05:54

You could always go the route of cheap pickup for DD and race car

Master Cylinder > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 06:38

$50-60K is good money. But it’s not that much in the scheme of things once you have to stretch it between rent/mortgage, utility bills, insurance, taxes, groceries, and all the other non-car expenses.

I know it’s lame, boring advice, but buy a solid used car for $5-7 grand. Save the excess in your budget. Work hard until you’re secure in your job (or at least as secure as you can be) and don’t count on that $80K until you have it in your hands.

I know how tempting it is to spend that money when you first get a decent job. But you’ll be much better off being frugal for the first 3-5 years until you’re really established.

swansong, rockin' the wagons > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 07:15

Will you have student loans to pay off? Will they be substantial? If so, get a cheap car. Reduce car ownership costs as much as possible. Take public transportation. As nice as it would be to reward yourself with a new car, getting that debt paid off will work out in the end. Trust me, I’m dealing with it now and wish I had made some different choices to reduce my higher interest debt first.

But, if no debt, FiST!

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > CRider
04/22/2016 at 07:38

Wow that’s a good looking truck. Standing by to see a thousand of them clogging up my backroad route to work in the morning.

\contractorsdrive slow

\hillbillydeluxe

UnderSTeerEnthusiast - Triumph Fanboy > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 08:00

Everything that BLCKSTRM said, and those echoing that is the perfect answer to this.. You’re right about where I am, as I am graduating with my degree in a year. Unless you’re in grad school we’re probably the same age even, my program is just a 5 year program. You probably don’t want to hear this (as I didn’t at first) but now that I’ve taken personal finance classes along with engineering so I can be smarter about the future, I’ve changed my car goals a lot. Focus first on paying down student loans and bills, then focus on starting to save for the future, whether it be savings alone, or with something like a 401(k) or Roth IRA, etc., basically something that will make your money grow and work for you for a long time.

Once you have all that figured out, I’d look at how much you really have to spend. I wouldn’t go beyond anything more than a slightly used FoST, FiST, Mk6 or Mk7 GTI (when the time is right). All of those will give you great performance for a DD without requiring a huge amount of maintenance. You don’t want to have a money pit as soon as you get out of school, as you you won’t have as much money to fall back on. If you can’t afford any of those comfortably, you might want to wait a few years.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 08:21

I picked the Fiesta ST. 42k miles later, I’m just now 2 years into ownership. You could say I like my decision. A few pointers

-Insurance is not much more than a normal fiesta for an ST
-Focus ST is like the GTI - many insurane companies give it its own category because 20-something drive too hard and crash them too often
-FiST can do over 40 mpg on the highway
-You as a driver can NOT do 40 mpg on the highway
-FiST is great to own in a city. Always easy to get into a parking spot. And maneuver around tight traffic or streets.

But I’ll also caution to not count your chickens before they hatch. I remmeber hearing the whole “Oh we’ll put you up in an office when you graduate!” only to be tossed aside a month later. I remember another job saying “Well let’s do a trial period and after 6 months we’ll give you a raise to where you say you should be at (I worked for about 8-10k below what I was worth)“ 3 years went by and I never got a raise.....

So yeah, I hope it all works out but don’t give them too much faith/credit. And I say get a FiST because it’s what I did and grand rapids needs more FiSTs and less FoSTs.

valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 08:54

A lot of people are posting solid, but boring, advice. Here's the truth: You're gonna work at that position for a while, and then you're gonna move on to a different job with a different wage. And you'll be able to afford nicer things as well. And life will move on and truthfully whether you spend an average of $300 or $500/month on a car now will not affect you that much. Especially because you're single. Be smart (and factor in rent if you're moving) but don't be a bean counter. Get what makes you smile.

Biggus Dickus (RevsBro) > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 09:00

I made similar money out of scool and ended up waiting a few years before I pounced on an E92 M3. The whole thing with buying a nicer car is to be sure to budget it in. Increasing your Car budget just decreases some other portion.

About those cars BLCKSTRM mentioned; some of those old M cars might be pushing your budget depending on how much you decide to spend on rent and etc. What city will you be in and do you plan on having a roomate?

Gone > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
04/22/2016 at 09:33

Not sure where you are in life, but I’ll assume:
No car (this is for sure)
$0 in checking
$10s of thousands in student loans
22yrs old

If it were me:
Bonus (make it up at $10k post taxes):
$2k to moving expenses (also tax deduction for 2016)
$2k to car downpayment for $6-$10k/car. Don’t spend more than $12k w/tax, registration, etc.
$3k to checking as float (never to go lower than this, but dire emergency)
$3k to smart investments

Anything over that put extra down and extra float as priorities and then investments.

Obtain $10-$20k in CC capacity on 2-3 cards. This is your ultimate you’re fucked emergency fund. Otherwise only use to buy gas and groceries and pay off every month while collecting cash back/points/miles.

For salary:
50K - 6%-8% (at least minimum match) to 401k, $300/month to brokerage/investment acct, pay minimum +$100/month to student loans

60K - 10%-12% to 401k, $350/month to brokerage/investment acct, pay minimum +$150/month to student loans

80K - 15% to max $18k in 401k, $500/month to brokerage/investment acct, pay minimum +$200/month to student loans

The more in your 401k, the lower your tax basis. And you’ll want that.

At max 401k (not including increasing as govt allows over time and 3% company match) at 8% and 30yrs old:
$234k in retirement

For investments, $3k initial + $6k/yr @ 8%
$74,500 in savings, emergency, free wedding, house downpayment, etc.

If you can find $500/month extra at $80k salary after all that to save for a toy track car, do it. First, add it to the investment acct. After 4yrs (now $1k/month @ 8% return) you’ll have $62,500 at 26. Take $20k as a car build fund, you’ll have a nice track car 5yrs (4yrs earnings + 1yr build) out of school that is completely paid for. Back in the investment acct, you’ll still have $42,500 left, which after 4 more years ($500/month + 8%, the other $500/month to fees+racing costs), you’ll have $87k in investments at 30.

Start early! Do it right and retire at 50-55. $18k/yr 401k+ 3% match of $80k for 28yrs (age 50) @ 8% is $2.1MM in your 401k and $701k in investment acct. 55 is $3.2MM and $1.07MM in investment acct...