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Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Can you though?

As a car enthusiast of over two decades, I am extremely familiar with stretching our dollars in order to buy cars. People spend money on eating out, we spend it on cars. If I weren’t a car enthusiast with a penchant for switching (brand-new) rides every three years, I would have immensely more wealth in investment accounts right now.

Obviously, they don’t give out medals for having the most money going to the grave. In this life you got to spend your money on something. It’s all about balance.

What my brother is planning to do is very far off balance. He’s put in an order for a car that is three times his annual income. Fair enough: he’s been saving diligently for as big a downpayment as possible. And apparently, with “exotic” cars, there exist banking services that would finance them for far longer terms than the typical mainstream vehicle. That is how my brother plan to “afford” this supposedly incoming car.

I’m sure the man-maths are working overtime to justify this move. However, the mistake is trusting the numbers on paper are static. Just look at recent inflation: gas, insurance, and maintenance costs have increased dramatically. The monthly fixed costs seem to be going ever higher. I guess my brother can save on gas by not driving the car, but then… what the heck is the point?

Then there’s the variable costs, with life being the variable. Pinching every possible penny to afford a car means any surprises down the proverbial road - and there’s always going to be surprises - will put my brother into the negative immediately. Can he afford an unscheduled wheel and tire replacement (unfortunate encounter with a pothole, let’s say) when he can barely afford the monthly payments? The only way the math is going to work is if life goes absolutely perfect. That’s simply not possible.

I’ve told my brother all of this, of course. Hopefully it’s enough to steer him from an enormous financial albatross.

The math is not math-ing

The most dangerous time for a car enthusiast, is when they are about to pay off their car. No more car loan debt means that money is freed up for something else: another car, naturally. The mind wanders at the possibilities. Perhaps it’s time to buy a car with a drivetrain layout you’ve never had before. Or perhaps it’s to re-purchase a car you shouldn’t have ever sold (thank goodness I cannot comfortably afford to buy another Porsche 911 GT3).

If there’s money in the bank account, you have to spend it. Isn’t that the American way? This entire economic house of cards is dependent on people’s continuous, often times reckless, spending.

My 2021 BMW M2 Competition will be paid of in a few months. And boy is the itch to buy another car itching intensely as that date draws nearer. I’m not being irresponsible! It will be the same money that would have gone to the M2 each month! It’s very easy to rationalize to yourself any purchase. The only reason I don’t have a mortgage is because the banks wouldn’t lend me the money.

But, as I like to say since last year: “Not in this economy!” Some people think that because they can afford the monthly car payment, they can afford the car. Don’t be like those people. We have to take in account the total operating cost. That means insurance, gas, and maintenance. And unless you’ve been living under a rock, all three of those things have gone up a lot in recent years thanks to inflation.

Never mind the fact that new cars have gotten rightly expensive. (Average transaction price in America is $47,338 as of this January.) High interest rates also means that monthly payment will be up as well. It’s really not a good time to be buying a second car, taking on tens of thousands of debt for another five years. I am going to keep telling myself that this entire 2024.

Man maths

10 days into the new year - have I already failed in the mission for austerity? Readers of this blog knows I am on the hunt for a new Honda Civic Type R. That means adding another car to the one I already have - a not-so-cheap to own BMW M2. Obviously that’s going to be quite a chunk of additional borrowing, and an increase in ancillary costs such as gas and insurance.

That is, if a dealership would even sell me a Civic Type R for a reasonable price.

Us car guys like to perform what we call “man maths”: a euphemism for convincing ourselves that we can overextend the budget to afford a certain car (or more). So I did my due diligence on the plan to buy the Civic. And what do you know: I can afford to have a second car, though I wouldn’t classify it was comfortable. I would essentially be “car poor”, which for a car enthusiast is probably not the craziest thing. What’s the meaning of life but to find the one passion and pour everything into it?

At least I won’t be in the negative, so to speak. I’ll just owe a bank a lot of money.

Alas, my Asian upbringing is convincing me otherwise. Buying the Type R would remove any cushion I have for other things. As of right now I would rather build up that buffer instead of immediately dropping another bag of money. This after a 2022 of somewhat heavy spending; I really need to bump up my monetary reserves. The second car will have to wait. It can still happen, just not right at this moment.

I think patience here is going to serve me well.

The opinion of others

Finally - some rain!

Coming out of the shower last night and preparing for bed, I heard the sweet tapping of precipitation on the window panes. It seems we haven’t had rain all year - and we’re deep into our typical rainy season, so the cleanse is incredibly welcomed. Free car wash, everybody! It’s also blooming season, so there’s a ton of pollen blowing around. The exterior of my BMW M2 is an absolute mess. I’ll check later if it rained enough last night to sheet the dirt off.

The blooming cherry and plum blossom trees in the neighborhood sure are lovely. Only one week out of the whole year do we get to enjoy their stunning gifts. Afterwards, the dead petals get blown away, many of which land right on my car.

It’s a reminder just how much I don’t drive the M2. It’s always fascinating to see the week’s worth of dust accumulation on the windshield when I do use the car on the weekends. If I were a strictly rational person, I would have traded the BMW for something far less expensive to insure and own. But car enthusiasm is never rational. Heck, car buying in general is not purely logical. That’s why I seldom give advice to people on what to buy, because they’ll inevitably purchase what their heart is already set on. It doesn’t matter that car is objectively worse than I would recommend.

I wouldn’t say I’m too emotionally attached to the M2. Admittedly, it is nice to have a cool car that stands out amongst a sea of SUVs. It provides a sense of smugness. It’s not quite that rich guy in a Lamborghini, but it’s similar. A good portion of car enthusiasm is about peacocking, and buying a car for the sake of impressing other people. We shouldn’t care about the opinion of others, but we do it anyways. Look at what I have! This expensive piece of machinery is an outside representation of me.

This is why I can’t swap the M2 for a more economical car. I love the power, and everything outwardly that BMW M cars represent. Though I do use the turn signals when changing lanes…

No driving for old me

These days I am driving my BMW M2 so infrequently that I’ve been entertaining thoughts of selling it. It’s rather irresponsible to keep such an expensive car around - plus the relatively high cost to insure it - only to have it sit outside on the curb most of the time (looking mighty pretty, I have to say). I don’t think I can go car-less, but switching to another that’s far less costly to purchase and own would be most financially ideal.

Not ideal for my car enthusiast heart, however. The push and pull between my love of cars and financial responsibility have been an ongoing struggle since my very first turn of the steering wheel. This “hobby” of ours is undoubtedly expensive, and our exravagent spending on cars isn’t suppose to be rational. Heck, car buying in general isn’t rational. If everybody bought only the right car for their purposes, we’d all be driving small, compact SUVs made by Japanese manufacturers.

Toyota is going to sell boatloads of the Corolla Cross.

Of course, cars are so much more than just mere transportation, even for those who aren’t the enthusiastic type. It’s an extension of our personality, a representation of ideals, for better or worse. Manufacturers are great at attacking those points with marketing. Everyone have notions of what a typical BMW driver is (again, for better or worse), same with a Toyota Prius driver. The latter of whom is probably hogging up the right-lane going way too slowly.

Must you own a cool car to be a car enthusiast? Even if all it does is just sit? These days I’m really pondering on those questions. I’ll certainly miss it greatly if I were to sell the M2, which is ultimately why I haven’t yet done it. Oh and the fact I’d be taking a bath on depreciation. Sunk cost fallacy is real and immense.

One car life

Okay, maybe I’m cut out to have more than one car at a time.

For past month or so, I’ve been caretaking my brother’s Mazda Miata. That is in addition to my own car, the BMW M2 Competition. As with most new things, it was fantastic at first. I love driving the little roadster, and best of all, it had a manual transmission. Top-down cruising in the mountains on a sunny day is just about as perfect as motoring gets.

But the reality is, I don’t have the time nor energy to upkeep both cars. I don’t put enough miles on the M2 as is! Having yet another car to put miles on means taking away seat time in the BMW. And I am paying way too much in insurance to simply have it sit around looking pretty in front of my home. Cars are meant to be driven, and sadly I don’t have the capacity to drive more than one.

I don’t know how other car enthusiasts who owns multiple cars do it. Either they apportion more time towards driving, or they let some cars sit for long periods. I love cars immensely, but I have other hobbies as well, so it can’t take up my life entirely. While it is indeed nice to have some variety in the cars I have access to, I just lack the bandwidth. I already don’t like washing my own car, imagine now having two to do!

So it is with some surprising relief that I gave the Miata back to my brother earlier this week. It’s off my hands (for now), and more time to concentrate solely on the M2. I reckon I am going to remain a single car owner for the foreseeable future, now that I’ve had a taste of the dual-car life. Be careful what you wish for, as they say.

I am humbled

It’s always fascinating to receive comments from people reading my GT3 diaries. It’s humbling to know that people looking for information about the 991.1 generation GT3 would arrive at my tiny corner of the Internet. Everything I write and do on this website is for my own enjoyment and for the sake of creating itself. Nothing was ever done in hopes of attracting an audience or turning this into a profitable enterprise. Therefore any interaction I do get from readers are super genuine, for which I am incredibly grateful.

Interestingly, the GT3 diaries attract most of its readers from the United Kingdom. If I had to guess (speculate, really), I think car enthusiasts across the pond have a different aspiration of owning the level of cars such as a GT3. Over there, guys and gals from middle-class backgrounds have no qualms about spending close to six-figures on a specialty sports car. That mirrors closely with my situation: I don’t make close to six-figures annually, yet I finagled my financial capacity to buy a GT3. Simply because I love that car, and wanted the experience.

American buyers of expensive sports cars tend to only be of the 1% earners, at least in my experience. I’ve yet to meet another enthusiast of my ilk, though perhaps that’s because no one would waste the amount of money on a car, as I did.

The GT3 diaries was my journaling of a working man’s dream of owning a super car. I am happy that it resonates with others, even if they from another continent. My only regret is I didn’t do more with the car, a year of ownership largely stolen by these COVID times. I endeavor to do better with M2 diaries, chronicling my current ownership of a BMW M2 Competition. That car is not nearly as special as a GT3, so I don’t reckon I’ll be getting a lot of correspondence on that in the comments.

I thank any and all for reading and perusing this website.