What proportion of your salary would you spend on a car?

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Soldato
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I remember we had a thread a while ago asking how much your car was worth relative to your salary, slightly different here.
If you were in the market for a car at the minute how much of your annual salary would you spend?

I remember when I was at uni looking forward to having a proper job and being able to blow loads of money on a fancy car. Sadly other, more boring, priorities have taken over since then!
If I were to buy a car tomorrow I probably wouldn't spend more than 20-25% of my annual salary, how about you?
 
That would depend on a whole variety of factors, including how I was planning on financing it and how long I was planning to keep it.

My current car was more than my annual salary, but meh...
 
Depends on what you're covering really. Repaymants, insurance, running costs, servicing etc?
 
yeh, I would spend up to 60% of my salary on a car. Only based on me keeping it and it being something special... hence why I didnt spend that much on my golf, but it will keep me going till I am 21 and buy something like a S2000/Z4/insert fast two seater beast!

The rest of my money will be sensibly put towards property, so that I dont feel too bad about treating myself to a depreciating asset.

Failing that, I will just opt for the company car!
 
I expect my car to cost me about 25% of my net earnings to run this year for 25k miles. That includes everything - servicing, depreciation, diesel, tax, insurance etc. I could do it a lot cheaper, but meh.
 
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Mine cost me 30%, which was a bit more than I was willing to pay, but my living factors change regularly. At this moment in time I would prefer a cheaper car because I want to finance/spend my money on other things.
 
If I was to buy a car it'd probably cost me under a grand, but on the other hand when I buy my next bike it'll probably cost me £4-5k, so just over a quarter.

Eek :/
 
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DannyW said:
x2

hence why i now drive a banger.. rather just have cash every month and have a life
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You have a Focus no?

If you want a banger, look pre focus, in fact look pre 90's...I have a banger. :p

On topic, I tend to spend little on cars, and not all that often really, and not having a job means that technically I spend more than my income, a huge amount more. :p But then I have student loans and grants and things. :)

InvG
 
Probably around 10% of my annual earnings will be on my next car, hopefully a 530i sport if i can get one for the right price, purely to soak up my mega miles. Cant think of much else more suitable for high mileage motoring which still looks and handles nicely.

Edit: i really dont think i would ever go much beyond 20%, i'd be too worried about its depreciation, im too sensible with money :/
 
Jez said:
Probably around 10% of my annual earnings will be on my next car, hopefully a 530i sport if i can get one for the right price, purely to soak up my mega miles. Cant think of much else more suitable for high mileage motoring which still looks and handles nicely.

Edit: i really dont think i would ever go much beyond 20%, i'd be too worried about its depreciation, im too sensible with money :/
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Is a more accurate representation of all of this not what % of your salary the car costs to run every year? Then you can include depreciation in etc...

I don't like depreciation, which is why I only buy cars privately and generally at a bargain price :) Also helps that when I import them into Ireland they're automatically worth more.

If you're doing high miles and pay for fuel, go for a 530d Sport rather than a 530i Sport. I was just at the cusp where buying petrol didn't really make sense.
 
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