{"id":275,"date":"2009-05-06T21:33:41","date_gmt":"2009-05-07T05:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.budgex.net\/blog\/?p=275"},"modified":"2011-05-14T10:21:42","modified_gmt":"2011-05-14T18:21:42","slug":"the-price-to-car-ratio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.budgex.net\/blog\/2009\/05\/the-price-to-car-ratio\/","title":{"rendered":"The Car Price to Gross Income Ratio"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had to sum up a lot of courage to come to terms with writing this post, and I am still fighting an internal battle to accept it.\u00a0 If you recall from a previous post<\/a> of mine, cars are one of my top 3 most cherished material items, and you’ll soon understand why this is hard for me.<\/p>\n

Have you ever wondered how much you should be spending on a car given your current income?\u00a0 Spend too little on a car and you end up getting a piece of crap<\/a>; spend too much and you won’t be able to afford anything else on your paycheck.\u00a0 I have certainly seen some people buying cars that cost almost as much as they earn in gross income!<\/p>\n

There has got to be an ideal car price-to-owner income ratio that can help you see if the purchase you’re about to make is a good idea.<\/p>\n

What is this magic number?\u00a0 Unfortunately, there is none.\u00a0 Different people have different tastes and thresholds.\u00a0 What I can<\/strong> provide you with is a range of what is reasonable.\u00a0 This relatively old but very interesting website<\/a> compares owner incomes to car prices, with car prices ranging from less than $10,000 to over $200,000.\u00a0 Here are the highlights:<\/p>\n