Or at least, it's pretty common among the folks I hang with. The car-loan phenomena is baffling to me; why would you pay interest on a depreciating asset?
A five year new car loan from a credit union -- no shopping around -- has a cost of something like $58 / $1000 borrowed. So even if you have $20k cash on hand to buy a new car, for a thousand bucks you can maintain an extra $20k of liquidity for expenses that are more annoying or more expensive to finance, like auto repairs.
My native country has a central database of every single loan outstanding. Lenders have to consult that before granting a loan and stay within certain limits. So at least here, an outstanding car loan might disqualify you from a home loan because of a lack of solvability...
I took his point as: Some people buy an expensive car they can ill afford when they could buy a cheaper one that will do the same job.
Like my TV example, but with a car.
(UK figures)
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
In 2014, 54% of all car first registrations were made by companies.
Which is lower than I would have guessed, but still significant.
Less common in Australia because they have (had?) a domestic market to protect -- import tariffs made it less attractive.
Tv don't enable you to get a better job/keep your current. If you want the argument to mean anything then you have to trade like for like. A nice couch will last years and it is still a frivolous consumer spending object. Is it worth it to pay ~80 usd to have the couch a year earlier?
> > > > Here's my argument.
> > > That argument's too weak.
> > Okay, here's a stronger version.
> No, you have to stick with the weak version.
Personally, I want to hear the strongest version of the arguments when I'm making a decision.
If you don't have $1200 for a TV you shouldn't be buying it. It's not as if you can't buy a perfectly reasonable TV for much less is it?