A large portion of the youth today are living off of their parent's income or existing wealth. Their parents might not pay for their car, per se, but they're likely footing the majority of their other expenses such as paying for their apartment or condo, paying their tuition, giving them regular allowances, etc.
On the one hand, I can't really identify on spending so much money on something with so little utility. On the other hand, why are we making all this money if not to spend it on the things we desire?
Before the world shut down, I was spending between $5-$10k per year on travel, but I have no vehicle payments and that represents (a good bit) less than 10% of my annual income.
The problems really on start when you want to do both. If you need to have a new vehicle and travel, and whatever else, you're going to over extend.
And it'll get 32 MPG whilst doing it. It could be worth taking a look.
Oh interesting. I hadn't picked up on that and I'll have to keep an eye out.
From the article (sort of related):
> Living paycheck-to-paycheck doesn’t necessarily mean hardship, and LendingClub makes the distinction between those can pay their bills easily and those who can’t. Only a fraction of high earners -- roughly one in ten -- reported issues covering all their household expenses in April, according to the survey.
I don't understand this/not enough information.
> To finance their lifestyles, higher-income households are more likely to put expenses on credit cards -- but also more likely to be able to pay off their balance in full.
If they're anything like me, they do this because not doing it is a 1% - 4% increase in cost. Apple Card, for example, offers 2% cash back if you use Apple Pay. I do this (among using other cards) and pay off my balance in full each month. We have a monthly budget spreadsheet where we log expenses so it doesn't matter what method we use for payment, except that we get 2% cash back (among other things like fraud protection - not my money) which we sort of "don't account for" so that we have some extra savings that doesn't feel like savings.
I feel like this article has a catchy headline, but ultimately they're trying to string together lots of pieces in some sort of frankenstein article.
Yep, I have 3% cash back so I put every bill I can on my credit card, even if there's a fixed fee (usually $2-3) on it. I earn about $30-60/month that goes straight to savings.