Tesla buying money guilt :-(

[PITA]

Yeah, my neighbours are nice too. Though one of them is VW Golf obsessed and has never forgiven me for selling my old e-Golf, so who knows what he'll make of the Tesla!

Haha... yeah, I hear you on the kind of scrotes who key cars being perfectly happy to be caught on camera so they have some footage to post to their TikTok and laugh about with their mates. Can't hurt to have a camera though. The one I have my eye on has a floodlight in it as well, so the bright light will draw their attention to it, and once they look at it they'll see it has a very obvious camera lens. So I'm hoping it will at least deter any of the camera shy ones.

I'm into Apple HomeKit stuff, so that's the route I'll be going for it. I already have a HomeKit doorbell camera (doesn't really cover where the car is parked though sadly), and agree with your assessment that it is mainly good at spotting animals! When I got my first "an animal has been spotted!" notification and opened the recording excitedly, only to see my neighbour's cat walk nonchalantly into shot, look around a bit, then wander off again I realised that feature is probably more useful in countries where they have man-eating bears and things like that

We have a 'Sentry Cat' which is adopted to patrol my Powerwalls at night. I always sleep well when Sentry Cat is on patrol

 

[gangzoom]

I live in the Slums ... according to my 'rich' friends. Still have 3 x Tesla Model 3 and a new Porsche within 50 yards of my front door though

I hope you are talking about your cars parked in the driveway rather than having other people live physically so close to you .

We've been in our house for coming up to 5 years but it wasn't until last month when my daughter was learning about maps in school and I went on Google maps I realised one of our neighbours has a rather big pond in their garden!!

Yeah, well I'm not really interested in moving up to a more expensive house. As a single person, 2 bedrooms is plenty for me.

Land/space is what you miss in a smaller house/plot. I love our Tesla, but force me to choose between the car and the house it's the house every single time without hesitation. Once you are use to the luxury of space its hard to give up. I would be very happy as a bachelor in our house as I'm now.

Rightmove will quickly show you what's within reach and what's not if it helps answer the question on propety envy. But £50k though in reality will not make any difference in affordability for any decent size plot/house, so just buy the car .

 

[PITA]

I hope you are talking about your cars parked in the driveway rather than having other people live physically so close to you .

We've been in our house for coming up to 5 years but it wasn't until last month when my daughter was learning about maps in school and I went on Google maps I realised one of our neighbours has a rather big pond in their garden!!

Land/space is what you miss in a smaller house/plot. I love our Tesla, but force me to choose between the car and the house it's the house every single time without hesitation. Once you are use to the luxury of space its hard to give up.

£50k though in reality will not make any difference in affordability for any decent size plot/house, however if you have property envy Rightmove will quickly show you what's within reach and what's not if it helps answer the question

Haha, no... we live in a small/average sized 3 bedroom detached house with a driveway for 2 cars... on an Estate with about 100 other 2-3 bed houses.

Gemma owns the Porsche, Gary owns a Model 3 and Donna owns a Model 3... plus my Model 3.

For 'space' we're members of the National Trust and take our sunpowered car there during week days for walks, with my Wife.

Feel very lucky actually, it's nice. Surrounded by caring and interesting people

My Wife laughs how I always end up chatting outside with the Neighbours instead of doing what I actually went out for...

 

[EVer Hopeful]

I'm from oop north (but not Yorkshire) so I'm frugal (but not that frugal). I looked at Teslas for ages and because I'm in a white collar job with no children was able to afford one but had trouble justifying it. (they're two very different things) Then one day I watched a video where the guy said "if you're waiting for the 4680 batteries or the mega casting, then don't because when those are available there'll be something else on the horizon to wait for". Then I discovered that placing an order was just a $100 (at the time) non-refundable transaction, but you still didn't have to buy the car!

That was it and I placed the order on June 22nd 2021 and finally took delivery on Oct 22nd, exactly four months later. This next bit won't help you, but it's also worth saying: I paid $6,500 less than I would if I bought one now. No help I know, but possibly a statement about the future

Anyway, it finally arrived and I've not looked back. I love the car (dreading the sw update though) and I'm GLAD I took the plunge. Money spent is forgotten.

Remember this: Money is just a tool. It's there to do something with

 

[AutomaticMan]

Big house with lots of outdoor space just sounds like a giant garden for me to have to keep on top of to me Like @PITA, I like to get my share of the great outdoors in public places rather than have one I'm responsible for. If I can spend my weekend mowing the lawn or driving to a National Trust property where someone else mows the lawn I know which I'll pick. Though of course, priorities change as you get older so I may not always feel like this.

I do also like the idea of being mortgage free, which is an easier position to get to on a smaller property than a bigger one. Even with buying the Tesla, in 5 or so years I should have enough in investments to pay off my mortgage in full should I choose to. This gives me 3 options: 1) cash in my investments and pay off my mortgage; 2) if the interest on my mortgage is lower than reasonable returns expected on the stock market, keep it invested with with the secure knowledge that I could pay off my mortgage at any time if I wanted to; or 3) use that money as a deposit for a new mortgage on a much bigger house. A £200k+ deposit (inc. equity I'd get from selling my place) and max allowable borrowings on a £50k+ salary gets a fairly decently sized garden in a reasonably priced area (I don't live in or near London) I think. And with 30 years of work left, I have plenty of time to pay it off.

But again, that's all hypothetical because it isn't really a priority for me as the moment. I guess if I needed a place that big I'd probably be buying with a partner anyway, so that might be 2 incomes supporting it as well.

 

[RedMod3]

No guilt from me. Mine cost £55,490, and 15 months later We Buy Any Car quoted me £50,500 for it. I've never seen such low depreciation. When buying expensive items, I always do a lot of research and my M3P was different, only my heart led to the M3P not the LR. You Only Live Once, so enjoy it. Coming from a BMW M3, the Tesla experience is equally good, but very different. No regrets.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

I do also like the idea of being mortgage free,

Being debt free is a wonderful thing. The next best thing is having only collateralised debt (like a mortgage, where you own something that could cancel out the debt) the worst is un-collateralised debt (like a credit card or gambling debts) which is just a millstone ... wait, the worst worst is owing Vinny a couple of grand and he wants it by Friday but that's a different matter


But here's an interesting question: Let's say you have two mortgages: one you've just started at say 4% and another you've almost finished with at say 6%. One day you get a letter saying an aged relative in Nigeria ... no not that relative, an aged relative has died and left you a sack of gelt. Which mortgage do you apply it to?

I purposely didn't include any amounts, like could the inheritance pay off the second etc, that'll come in question two

So which one? (and for bonus points; how can you prove this?)

 

[AutomaticMan]

Being debt free is a wonderful thing. The next best thing is having only collateralised debt (like a mortgage, where you own something that could cancel out the debt) the worst is un-collateralised debt (like a credit card or gambling debts) which is just a millstone ... wait, the worst worst is owing Vinny a couple of grand and he wants it by Friday but that's a different matter


But here's an interesting question: Let's say you have two mortgages: one you've just started at say 4% and another you've almost finished with at say 6%. One day you get a letter saying an aged relative in Nigeria ... no not that relative, an aged relative has died and left you a sack of gelt. Which mortgage do you apply it to?

I purposely didn't include any amounts, like could the inheritance pay off the second etc, that'll come in question two

So which one? (and for bonus points; how can you prove this?)

Haha... love it! Well, I was always told that you pay off the higher interest debt first, but I feel like you're about to blow my mind by showing me differently

But when I say I'd like to be mortgage free, I mean either actually mortgage free or just able to be mortgage free. If the interest on my mortgage is low enough that I can reasonably expect equity growth in the stock market to outweigh interest on the mortgage I'd keep my money invested. So, if I had enough money to pay off my mortgage today (and wouldn't get a penalty for early repayment) I wouldn't actually do so, because my mortgage is under 2% and stock market growth has historically significantly outperformed that.

But it would be a nice sense of security to know that I had the money to pay it off if interest rates went up dramatically.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

The answer (without having actual numbers) is to pay off the first one, the 4% one you just started - and yes it surprised me when I figured it out

The reason is because on the second mortgage you've pretty much paid it all back, so your payments are mostly principal and not much towards interest any more, so you can almost look on it as a 0% mortgage

The first on though has just started, so you're paying mostly interest, An extra payment brings down the principal, so straight away any subsequent payment you make has a greater principal component and a smaller interest component and you'll pay off the loan much faster than the original term. This is why making one extra payment a year is also considered a good technique to save money. Think of it as YOU getting the compounded interest on that extra payment instead of the bank

If you're any good with Excel, you can plot this out by making a table of the payments and creating a graph of the balance against time. Use the PMT function and you'll see the graph is a lot like if you stood on Beachy Head and threw a cricket ball out into the Channel. It would track almost horizontally for a while then start to dip, then more and finally it'd be an almost vertical plummet into the water. Paying off the 4% loan means that instead of Beachy Head, you threw it off erm ... The Belle Tout Lighthouse maybe, whatever, a lower part of the coastline

Does that make sense?

 

[AutomaticMan]

The answer (without having actual numbers) is to pay off the first one, the 4% one you just started - and yes it surprised me when I figured it out

The reason is because on the second mortgage you've pretty much paid it all back, so your payments are mostly principal and not much towards interest any more, so you can almost look on it as a 0% mortgage

The first on though has just started, so you're paying mostly interest, An extra payment brings down the principal, so straight away any subsequent payment you make has a greater principal component and a smaller interest component and you'll pay off the loan much faster than the original term. This is why making one extra payment a year is also considered a good technique to save money. Think of it as YOU getting the compounded interest on that extra payment instead of the bank

If you're any good with Excel, you can plot this out by making a table of the payments and creating a graph of the balance against time. Use the PMT function and you'll see the graph is a lot like if you stood on Beachy Head and threw a cricket ball out into the Channel. It would track almost horizontally for a while then start to dip, then more and finally it'd be an almost vertical plummet into the water. Paying off the 4% loan means that instead of Beachy Head, you threw it off erm ... The Belle Tout Lighthouse maybe, whatever, a lower part of the coastline

Does that make sense?

Oh, yes it does! Actually I think I did know that at one point... remember reading an article on that once upon a time.

Adds further weight to the approach of keeping money invested rather than paying off the last bit of a mortgage early.

 

[KurtoskiUK]

If it helps, I have 0 savings, a 2 year old, mortgage and earn £38k a year. Just ordered my M3LR. My justification is the £9k of mileage claims I have saving the £3-4K a year fuel spend. But still…

 

[M1tch]

Wow, this is a busy thread for only a few days old. I’ve not had time to read it all, but my thoughts:

Personally, I was spending £300-£350 - month on fuel. That was going to work late Sunday night and home on a Thursday night (late). 95%+ of my trip is national speed limit / motorway.

My fuel bill is now paying for a brand new iPad - with wheels (M3P). It improves regularly, it’s faster, quieter, smarter and I charge up at work (in the 4 days I’m here) and then drive it home and back for free.

Granted the car isn’t £350 a month but add a bit to that and it’s certainly workable. Especially in the long run.

So, to the OP. You appear to have significantly more money than I and much more flexibility. You only live once. You can have a million pounds in the bank aged 80 and people will think you’re amazing. A million pounds in the bank and dead aged 81 and who cares? (Apart from those in your will)

 

[Llama.]

I work for a charity on a modest salary and spent 3 years saving £15k deposit for my Tesla M3 LR. That brought my monthly PCP payment down to about £476 a month which is just about affordable for me and is roughly what I was saving per month in deposit anyway.

So I know what you mean about the car feeling a bit flash for your neighbourhood. I do admit to feeling a bit sheepish about owning such a posh car when I pull up at my charity job.

But I love my car and have worked hard for it. Plenty of people get £50k Mercs and Audis and nobody even notices. I guess maybe a Tesla feels like more conspicuous wealth to people.

 

[M1tch]

I work for a charity on a modest salary and spent 3 years saving £15k deposit for my Tesla M3 LR. That brought my monthly PCP payment down to about £476 a month which is just about affordable for me and is roughly what I was saving per month in deposit anyway.

So I know what you mean about the car feeling a bit flash for your neighbourhood. I do admit to feeling a bit sheepish about owning such a posh car when I pull up at my charity job.

But I love my car and have worked hard for it. Plenty of people get £50k Mercs and Audis and nobody even notices. I guess maybe a Tesla feels like more conspicuous wealth to people.

I agree with your last comment. My Audi cost more and had a few comments about how it sounded etc etc, but I’ve done almost no work this week as everyone wants to talk about the Tesla. It’s the same at home and even random people passing!

 

[PITA]

The other day I was showing the car to a friend of mine, and his 21 year old Son.

Young people LOVE this car... I think of it as the 'Tesla experience'. I'm 54 and a Grandad now... so it's all a bit 'cool' for them.

Yoke steering system, glass sunroof, touch screen display, Netflix, Knight Rider Boombox, Lightshow, Farting indicators, Megaphone Death Talk, Remote App Control, Matrix 'TESLA' lights, Surround Sound Cinema quality and then... and then.... the 'test drive' on Sport Mode. All costing me pennies to charge from our Tesla Powerwalls and Solar Sunshine.

Blows them all away, and as a Grandad I'd just like to say 'Thank You' to Elon Musk and his crew for bringing this mobile fun entertainment system into our lives.

 

[pharwood]

I do also like the idea of being mortgage free, which is an easier position to get to on a smaller property than a bigger one. Even with buying the Tesla, in 5 or so years I should have enough in investments to pay off my mortgage in full should I choose to.

At your age and income level and with your amount of investments you should seriously consider putting at least 5 to 10% of your investments into the crypto/DEFI space. NFA. DYOR.

Asymmetric risk. Doubt those investments will go to zero, but the upside could be life-changing.

 

[AutomaticMan]

At your age and income level and with your amount of investments you should seriously consider putting at least 5 to 10% of your investments into the crypto/DEFI space. NFA. DYOR.

Asymmetric risk. Doubt those investments will go to zero, but the upside could be life-changing.

I do need to learn about this one day. I don't know much as I'd like to about crypto and blockchain and things, so it's something I need to understand better. I guess my assumption is that I've already missed the era of life-changing returns on crypto, but maybe I'm wrong about that...

Thanks! You've reminded me that I do need to look into this a bit more

 

[pharwood]

I guess my assumption is that I've already missed the era of life-changing returns on crypto, but maybe I'm wrong about that...

Still money to be made in crypto. DEFI is where crypto was maybe 5 years ago. Also look into DAOs. Plenty of info out there when you are ready to jump in.

 

[Snowy77]

Don't forget to order all your model 3 accessories from ali express NOW for you to get them by your pickups in March!

Help save a good chunk of cash

 

[EVer Hopeful]

You can't do Tesla AND crypto -they're opposite sides of the energy use coin

Tesla is an attempt to use energy more wisely, replace fossil fuels with sustainable sources

Crypto is just an unbelievable waste of energy - that should be your first thing to learn about