Hacker News Reader

Comment by beembeem | Hacker News Reader

More on cars than kids? Wow. I am genuinely surprised.

I look around at my neighbors, my friends... everyone must be doing better off than me OR everyone is just constantly living in debt and considering a car payment a permanent "tax to live" because I see people with new cars (if used, very late model) everywhere.

I am terrified of one of my cars breaking (both Toyotas, thankfully, fingers crossed, knock on wood). I dread having to buy another car when these are done.

I suspect a decent percentage of people with newer cars are leasing, since many people shop for a car based on monthly payment without considering the long-term costs.

Also, unrelated heads up since you mention older Toyotas: there's a new recall on Takata airbags from certain 200x models.

https://text.npr.org/2024/01/30/1227923226/toyota-warning-ad...

As a long time car avoider it truly baffles me the people I see driving while on minimum wage. A lot of people will just drive around either uninsured or by defrauding their insurance hoping this never blows up in their face and well it usually doesn’t.

At least where I live there's not much choice for some of those folks I don't think... If you have to work two minimum wage jobs you aren't going to make it on time going from one job to the next taking the bus unless they're quite close to each other.

Haha, I feel the same way when I compare with my neighbors! I have a “really decent” job in tech, and live comfortably, but my family does it by living in a modest sized home, driving a 15 year old car, 7 year old phone, and basically never taking vacations. But when I go drop my kid off to visit her friends, everyone’s got ginormous homes, some on acreage, beautiful furniture, 0-3 year old cars, all the latest gadgets, photos from last year’s trip to Cancun… and they’re nurses and electricians. Not that I feel I’m better than them because of my career but jeez how do they afford it all???

I’m glad I don’t have the “normal” urge to Keep Up With The Jones’s because I’d be broke!

Same here. But I know how they do it because I have some family like that: they're hip deep in debt and will never figure out how bad the situation really is until the inflow of cash that allows them to pay the interest on all of their loans stops. Then there will be a rather rude adjustment in life style.

Well, when you separate out housing, cars, health insurance, vacations, and education that doesn't leave a lot to fall specifically under the category of "children." If you pay for daycare, that's only a few years. For our family, the big expenses of having kids have been moving from a 1BR apartment to a 4BR house and getting a minivan. College (effectively planning to cover in-state tuition for them) will be a big one when the time comes.

It’s not necessary to spend heavily on kids. They do require a huge amount of time which comes at the opportunity cost of not working. Career sacrifices and daycare is where the big expenses are.

I’m not surprised at all. People think kids are way more expensive than they really are, and think that cars are much cheaper than they really are.

My kid’s afterschool care costs more than my monthly car payments + insurance (and I have a pricey new EV). If he was still in daycare, I would get creamed even harder. Thankfully this might end in a few years, but daycare costs are no joke, and then there are lots of activity costs.

I guess it depends on how often you buy a new car, some people get new cars every 3-4 years.

If you exclude third-party childcare, kids aren't that expensive in direct costs. So a typical family with an at-home caretaker sending the child to a public school and going on local vacations on their, well, car might indeed end up spending more in cars than the child.

Kids are very expensive, however, in opportunity costs - but that wouldn't appear here.

Hah! Unfortunately cars don't become more self sufficient as they get older

Reply on news.ycombinator.com