CAMARO COST VS INCOME

[evergrn]

Originally Posted by Jim Burke

Wow. you must have a pretty shiny degree for that kind of money

It's a ridiculous price for a masters degree. But there's not much I can do about it. The school is a private (aka for-profit) college, and one of the biggest and most well recognized acupuncture schools in the US. 3.5 years at 3 semesters a year with average semesters being 20-22 credits is quite a hefty sum.

[Nessal]

My Camaro is about 9% of my gross and 12% of my net. But I get about 5k back every year when I do my taxes so I'm closer to my gross. But you guys also have to factor in insurance, gas, tires, maintenance, etc.

[Jim Burke]

Originally Posted by evergrn

It's a ridiculous price for a masters degree. But there's not much I can do about it. The school is a private (aka for-profit) college, and one of the biggest and most well recognized acupuncture schools in the US. 3.5 years at 3 semesters a year with average semesters being 20-22 credits is quite a hefty sum.

That is a touch ridiculous. Master's Degree in 3.5 years? Thats pretty fast.
Hopefully it works out. Over 200k for an education, you better be makin that much a year within 5 years

[BigPopa71]

My Camaro cost me 10% of my net which is not bad. My dad always taught me that it is irresponsible to spend over 15% of your net income on a car note provided you don't live at home with your parents. Now if your 19 years old and at home you can go 30% or more, because you don't make as much and your parents got you covered!lol

[Austin45]

Originally Posted by DRKS1D3

You NEVER buy things you can just afford. You buy items that you can pay for and still sock fist-fulls of cash into the bank. "Well, if I work 75 hours a week, skip lunch and dinner 4 times a week and keep my Central Air and lights turned off 5 days a week, I'll just be able to afford those payments.".

Yeah... that's me... Being a college student and the only thing I have to pay for is my Camaro... it takes over 50% of my income

[SPARTAN sui]

You're at least riding in style!

[CRTZL1]

Originally Posted by TSSUNAMI

OP: It's a loaded question bud.

A person's financial situation is generally as unique as their DNA.

Take a single person, no spouse, no kids. 30K annual income. They can probably afford having half their income go to their car payment if they don't already have significant debt.

Now take a person with a spouse, several children, a mortgage, a load of credit card debt on a 60K combined income. Their car budget will be much smaller than the aformentioned example.

In a nutshell, and I've said this before: If one isn't sure that they can afford to finance something do what I did.

Find your car (Or whatever else you are considering purchasing) Calculate the cost of financing into your monthly finances. Then for six to twelve months "bill yourself" Take your anticipated car payment and drop it in a savings account, jar, coffee can, whatever... save it. If, at the end of your six to twelve month period you find that you haven't needed to touch that savings without subjecting yourself to a lesser quality of life, then go make the purchase. You can even use that money you saved towards a down payment, mods, or if you're really a smart cookie, you'll keep it stashed away to cover the unexpected.

Or you can be like me and not give a shit about payments and buy whatever car you want at any given moment you want!!!

To the OP my payment on my camaro is weighing in just about 4.5 ish percent of my take home and my Ram is about 5 percent....Oh and the wife's lease is about 3 percent... still plenty left over, maybe I'll get me another....

GEORGE,,, What up kid???

[HumanWiki]

Originally Posted by SPARTAN sui

Congrats on your success, sounds like you're off to a great start. I will try to work on my CCNA, thanks for the tip.

I had mine for about 6 yrs, then let it lapse. I have the education up to the CCDP level and the equivalent in Microsoft land as that's where all of my degrees are.

Moving out of the podunk of SETex did wonders for my pay and experience. I make 3.3x more now than I did in 2005 just due to the move and contacts I made within the IT field at various places.

I really don't have many people pestering me with certs anymore.. They're a nice to have and I know some places require them, but I've ran in to too many people that have the paper w/o the ability to back it up. Many of them wear their certifications on their shirt, which also gets a little old. They're great at pontificating and spouting off vendor babble, but that's pretty much it.

[TSSUNAMI]

Originally Posted by SSRS55

Or you can be like me and not give a shit about payments and buy whatever car you want at any given moment you want!!!

To the OP my payment on my camaro is weighing in just about 4.5 ish percent of my take home and my Ram is about 5 percent....Oh and the wife's lease is about 3 percent... still plenty left over, maybe I'll get me another....

GEORGE,,, What up kid???

If we could all run like Eric we would be running 9 second cars Hahaha.

Presidente!!!! Whatup ma dude?

[tramtwo]

Single no kids.

What I pay for this car is one thing.... what it cost to own is something very different. This gets many people in trouble. Note, insurance, fuel, mods and maintenance for the first year I owned the car was..... drum roll.... about 23K. Getting close to 30 percent. This second year that ownership cost will go down to about 15 of take home. I will use some of the windfall to pay down debt probably.

Note is about 11%

[SPARTAN sui]

Originally Posted by HumanWiki

I had mine for about 6 yrs, then let it lapse. I have the education up to the CCDP level and the equivalent in Microsoft land as that's where all of my degrees are.

Moving out of the podunk of SETex did wonders for my pay and experience. I make 3.3x more now than I did in 2005 just due to the move and contacts I made within the IT field at various places.

I really don't have many people pestering me with certs anymore.. They're a nice to have and I know some places require them, but I've ran in to too many people that have the paper w/o the ability to back it up. Many of them wear their certifications on their shirt, which also gets a little old. They're great at pontificating and spouting off vendor babble, but that's pretty much it.

Getting my CCNA is something I would like to keep up to date. To be honest, I love computer repair, it just comes too easily to me. I like the challenge of networking and I love the concepts behind how data traverses a network. I just don't have a complete grasp around the subject because I don't do it day to day and I learned about it 4-5 years ago. I can setup Cisco equipment, but I'm rusty on subnetting, the TCP/IP & OSI models, etc.

I think it would be the only certificate I aspire to achieve. I agree, I've noticed a lot of places don't care so much about certificates as they care more about experience. Anyone can be certified, however once you place them in front of the real deal and they break because they don't have any hands on experience, that's an issue. That's why I despise Labsims being used as the only lab. No real world hands on experience. I'm glad I learned hands on.

[CamaroSkooter]

My car payment is $461.75 a month and I make $4,285 per month after taxes.

So, I'm at 10.78%, paying $830 per month for my apartment...

I don't really know if that's good or bad, per se, but I'm not stretching my finances by any means.