When is the time to buy a cool car
How much income and net worth should I have before buying buying a cool car, say a Porsche Carrera S (low 80K)?
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in my opinion...im not sure how practical a cool car or any car would be?
if you're working in a east coast city, first you are going to buy a porsche, then you will pay out of the ass for maintenance, gas, and parking (although depending on who you work for, parking may be expensed)
then theres the question of....when are you planning on driving this car?
if you're an analyst or associate...im not sure you're going to have any time to drive this car around.
i hope you're not planning on driving to work, especially if you're in the northeast (nyc, chicago, boston). West coast is different because public transportation sucks, or so i've heard.
just my 1.5 cents worth....
A car priced around 80k will lease for about $1000-$1200 per month. Therefore, it really depends on how expensive everything else in your budget is to see if you can afford it. I've heard a metric thrown around that car payments should not exceed 15% of income. That would imply an income of about $100k to afford it. A more realistic income would be $150k-$200k.
If you live in NYC, a car is really just a luxury and is not needed (never mind that parking will cost $500 per month without you even driving it anywhere). Therefore, if you live in NYC, I'd say take care of getting a better apartment first.
However, if you live outside of NYC, and need a car anyway, you might consider buying it earlier since the marginal difference between, say a loaded 335i Coupe (which leases around $700), isn't very much. However, if you buy a "cool" car like a 2 seat coupe or roadster, you have to realize that your usefulnees goes way down. This is especially important if you live somewhere that you need to own a car for everything. Therefore, it might make more sense as a second car, in which case you'd need to be making significantly more.
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