Fiscal Irresponsibility

believe me the chicks will stimulate you. will no longer need bottles.

..on that end, when i make extravagant purchases, i feel guilty. but another way to think about it is that you're making a purchase and helping someone else out.

in all honesty, who the hell is going to be selling a used 07 vantage for 50% the brand new price, unless they were in a cash strapped position. then again, my idea of extragavant purchase is $500 weightlifting set from Bowflex.

btw, now that circuit city is liquidating, anyone know if iPods/cameras/laptops are selling at huge discounts?

The world has changed. And we must change with it.

if u find yourself in a cash strapped situation down the road, let me know. i will purchase the car from you for $30K.

something like a futures contract or was it forward.

The world has changed. And we must change with it.

Hmm... I definitely share your affinity for Astons. Do you own or rent?

Personally, I want to be in a position to buy a close to $1M apartment before I start to really enjoy my money on toys... even if they happen to be a great bargain.

If you do get it, let me know... I'd like to go for a spin.

would you still have six months of expenses paid for in you savings somewhere? If the answer is yes, I would lean towards the yes category.

PS: What is insurance like on that car?

Sounds sexy. Get it!

35k here.

But dude...pick that car up! I know it may sound irresponsible to spend so much money on a car when you would only be 'breaking-even' with your salary, but its fun to throw responsibility out the window sometimes.

If it was me, I'd go get it tonight and be ripping it down the streets by midnight.

No actually Circuit City has cut their discounts since reaching the deal with the liquidation firms. They had a plasma tv two weeks ago marked down by $500 bucks, now it is only marked down by $200

Don't buy it, dude. You said you are going to buy it as a weekend car. Well, not sure where you live, but after the first excitement you might not use the car every weekend. So basically you will have that car sitting in a garage at least 5 days per week and then some weekends too when you decide to do something different. So your depreciating car will just sit there and cause you expenses. You could have a lot more fun on weekends with that amount of money doing something else....like renting that same type of car for those weekends when you actually want it. Much less hastle and expenses than actually owning it.

If you were going to sell your other car, I would say go for it. But just as a weekend car? Come on, you can do better things with your money.

My thoughts:

The Vantage is a great car, but I think you can get a high performance, great looking whip for less.

I'm a big fan of the Audi S5 and the BMW M3. Granted, the M3 will probably put you in a similar price domain, but you could probably get better terms and it would be a brand new car (which also happens to do 0-60 in around 4.5 seconds). If your heart is set on the Vantage, go for it, but I think there is a great deal of satisfaction that could be derived from either of these, somewhat more reasonable, choices as well.

If you were to lose your job in a month would you regret the purchase? Remeber - it is in your employers best interest to lead you to believe you will be gainfully employed and well compensated (even if that is not the case). This happened to me. Literally on a Friday after a few meetings I got a lot of praise from my MD and things were going great, by Tuesday basically everyone was fired.

If you have enough to support yourself for 6-9 months while job hunting and you wouldnt regret the purchase during those times, then I say go for it. It is a badass car.

Beyond does have a good point. The utility you have from the purchase will decline (fairly rapidly). In a year, when you've used the car a few dozen times, it probably wont be as cool.

I think there is a huge divide in ballerness between an M3 or S5 and an Aston Martin.

The Vantage is definitely an amazing car and after imagining myself in your situation, I think it would take a great deal of restraint to not buy one. That being said, why would you pay cash for it? Also, as I said above, I would definitely not buy it if I didn't own my current apartment since 65K+Tax would be a nice supplement to a down payment.

Make sure this is a legit deal too. I'm sure you've done your homework and everything, but I know from experience how dangerous eBay can be. Just a word of caution from a frequent eBay visitor. Otherwise I say get it. If you do get laid off in the near future I'm sure you'll be able to sell it and not take a loss.

Let's address the job security point first - I'm at a private equity fund where we're 90% deployed and have 12 portfolio companies, the associates are needed because if you got rid of one or two guys, it would be too much work for the remaining associates. As far as bonus is concerned, I spent the majority of 2008 in the midst of the same market conditions we're experiencing today, and still received the full bonus that was stated to me and this year's was orally stated to me when I signed on for a third year mid-2008.

To Elan's point and to address TheKing - I love the S5, as well, but there is a huge difference. And for the same amount of money (actually a fully equipped new S5 would be more than 55 or 60K) I would much rather have the AM Vantage.

Elan - would not pay cash for it, I would probably put 5-10k down and then finance the rest over 4 or 5 years, depending on the rate, and I rent right now because like I said, no idea where I'll be in 2010.

d52strick9 - yes, I would have six months expenses left in the account even if I decided to pay up front in all cash, which I won't. The fact is, I think I could manage my monthly expenses to where I broke even on my base salary without dipping into my savings the majority of the months (unless I had a big expense like a trip, etc.).

The one point I did feel was valid is beyond_brilliant's. At call it 1500 all in monthly cost, if I drove the car 2-3 weekends a month, you're paying 500 dollars per drive. That's something I need to think about, especially since I won't be driving it much during the winter. I'm also out of town on the weekends a LOT, so it might be more than that...

Also, it's a legit purchase. It's being sold by a Ferrari/Maserati dealership in NYC and I'd make sure they put a 1 year (at least) dealer warranty on it for free as part of my negotiations. According to the dealer, it's a trade-in that a guy made in order to buy a Ferrari. My main concern is that with the amount of miles on the car, I'll have to buy new tires soon which could cost 2K+. Again, another negotaiting point.

GameTheory,

Please PM me for wire transfer details. I would like $3,000 by this time tomorrow morning as appreciation for not bidding up the Aston another $5k.

Best, Marcus

Ha. It's on both ebay and cars.com, so feel free to bid it up. Last I checked, 5K would not get you to the buyitnow price and the reserve was not met. I'm not planning on purchasing it over ebay or cars.com, I'm planning on going to NYC and test driving it first.

Co-worker just informed me that a car club would be about 1200 per day to rent the Aston Martin. At 500, it doesn't seem so bad now..

500 dollars per drive...I gues that would even be a low estimate then. Again, don't know where you live, but since you said you won't drive it much during winter, you probably can completely count out November-February. If you travel a lot on the weekends, then you will maybe drive the car 2 weekends a month tops. So in the end, it will be quite a lot of money for a few drives. Adding to that, since you said you don't know where you will be after 2010, and if there is the possibility that you could go overseas after 2010, then you might end up selling the car after 1.5 years or so for probably less than you bought it, so in the end you will loose money on a car that sat in the garage 85% of the time.

I can tell you are in love with this car, but still, my recommendation stands, don't buy it unless you can use this car as your every day car. This way you could enjoy it every day...not like 1 or 2 weekends a month....which seriously might make you feel guilty about having bought it. Otherwise, just rent yourself the car for those (few) weekends when you want it.

Huh! 1200 per day to rent the car??? Gee, that is a lot!!! I would never have thought that. Well, in that case.....nahhh....I still wouldn't buy it.

Well in my defense, this is not a car you really drive every day. You're not taking the Aston Martin to Costco to pick up wholesale toilet paper.

Even if I was in town every weekend, I'd still probably put 2-3K per year on the car, at the very max. If you look at the listings, most people that have '07's have about 2-8K milage on it.

So you're right, is it worth it? Maybe not from a dollar standpoint. But am I going to use it any less or any more than your typical AM owner? Probably not.

Yeah, sure, point taken, you're not going to drive it for every day errands. So I suppose it boils down to whether 500+ dollars per drive are worth it to you.

Personally, I think it would be cool at the beginning, but after a while it would loose it's excitement. Really depends on how badly you want it.

sry just bought it. thx 4 heads up

Guess that solves my quandry, then.

Hmm... interesting quandary. Have you considered just joining the car club? You get more variety that way, keep your working cap up and don't watch your assets depreciate in your garage. Not to mention the hassle of insurance, maintenance, etc.

There are a ton of good investments out there right now if you have capital to deploy. I was in a similar position, but decided to go a slightly different route... PM me if you want more details.

From an optics perspective, who gives a shit? Obviously I have no idea about your firm's culture but as long as you're relatively discreet about it I would guess no one would get too worked up; i.e. leaving the car keys on your desk all day, loudly offering rides to the HR chicks, etc.

Another thing to consider is real estate - the two biggest reasons is a) depressed prices b) lowering your effective financial aid base for b-school.

Another option, ask your boss to take a 6 month sabbatical and go live on a houseboat in Amsterdam.

I honestly don't think it makes sense to buy it in this environment. Things change too rapidly.

A car club sounds more reasonable.

Yes, I considered the car club, but like I said before, I don't really care about the other cars - the AM is the only one I've had my eye on. Insurance is expensive, and tires are the big maintenence item.

Car club is 10,000 a year to join - payments on this car would total about 13,000 a year, and I'd own the car...

You are only in this position one time in your life. Take advantage of it there will be plenty of time to make more money and enjoy that also.

in that case I guess...

Would definitely not get the car. If you're like me, or any other human being I know, you'll get sick of it, and fast. Cars are one of the unique assets that decrease in value rapidly. Once the initial buzz wears off, it will be just another car for you.

I agree with Alphaholic's approach -- go real estate. In the current market there are a lot of opportunities out there that someone with liquid assets can take advantage of.

That said, can I interest you in one of these timeshares I'm selling???

~~~~~~~~~~~ CompBanker