Financially stretching - what were your life trade-offs?

Hi, this is my first post on this forum. I've seen some threads which somewhat touched on this topic here (particularly the one from December) as well as on teslamotors.com (although I haven't read through every single thread) but I wanted to do a pulse check again, especially with new owners where the initial hype might have worn off as well as those who might have had a change of heart in the last six months. Apologies if this topic has already been covered ad-nauseam.

I'm curious as to how far current owners were willing to stretch themselves financially in order to be able to justify their purchase, not including those fortunate enough to be able to easily plunk down the cash up-front without a second thought. Cars tend to be an emotional purchase for many and I assume in this case we're talking about a relatively significant financial commitment for most.

There are obviously many ways to look at this issue with a wide variety of subjective factors to consider and I presume most owners are sane enough to not put themselves into extremely vulnerable financial situations in order to get a fancy "nextgen" vehicle, but as a generalization, I'm wondering what kind and how much risk owners were willing to expose themselves to (delay mortgage payoffs, delay retirement savings, etc.) in order to afford one?

I'm on the fence on purchasing (again) but after writing down the numbers, it seems I'm actually able to afford one assuming I put half down with a 72-month loan while potentially paying it off early, and still maintain my present course of paying off my mortgage ten years early as well. I had assumed a while ago that I'd have to delay mortgage payoff by quite a bit, but that doesn't seem to be the case, assuming future economic conditions aren't too adverse for me.

However, this does mean the money I'm putting into a car is not being used for padding retirement or other investments. I'm a little conservative on these things so making a leap of faith requires me to do some comparison on just how sane (or not) my line of thinking is relative to others who may be in a somewhat approximate situation as myself, otherwise there's a nagging voice in my head yelling at me for being unnecessarily frivolous and indulgent. On the other hand, I'm over forty and not getting any younger.

I plan on keeping the car as long as I can or however long the battery lasts or technology to replace it will be available. This will be my third car. My current vehicle for which I paid about $20k new is almost fourteen years old and still runs fine, but at 230k+ on the odometer it's not going to last forever. I can't cost-justify a Model S based simply on fuel savings (the new insurance will offset that) and perceived less mechanical maintenance (also offset by tire costs). And body-related damage repairs will be very expensive from what I can tell. When it comes down to it, this will be a very pricey avatar for my sense of futurism and willingness to gamble on positive disruption in a stagnant industry. A nice avatar, for sure, but I'm trying to walk the line to ensure I'm not making an overly impulsive decision. On the other hand, it's easy to over-rationalize.

Living a few exits away from the Fremont factory SuperCharger adds a bit of comfort too.

Thanks for the link to that particular thread as it's directly relevant. I skipped over that one while combing through the forum. Seems we have a number of parallels, including vocation.

My risk-averse tendencies may have benefited me twenty years ago when I was seriously financially struggling, but it's not a habit which equally applies well in my current situation which is obviously very different. I work in Silicon Valley and make a Silicon Valley salary, so clutching onto the pot like I'm still working minimum-wage is a disadvantage, but old habits die hard when you've been through some desperate years.

MikeC said:

I gave up any potential international vacations for a few years, figuring that knocks off 5-10k of the purchase price.

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I think I've had two vacations in the last twenty years. I've had to redefine what a vacation really means. But a in-country road trip with a new car would certainly be cheaper to some degree. Plus going through the TSA checkpoints are really annoying.

meloccom said:

Nothing however, removes the lingering doubt that this is a lot to spend on a depreciating asset.

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Nailed it right there. But after reading through the replies in this (and other) thread so far, I realize a bit more now that it's not healthy to only invest in financial stability at all costs and sacrifice current well-being. Finding that balance sometimes is hard when there's a lot of general repeated advice to prioritize your retirement savings.

DEinspanjer said:

You have to enjoy the path to old age rather than focusing solely on funding old age, because you have a higher chance of being alive the next ten years than the next thirty.

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I didn't really think of it this way. I'm probably too caught up in ensuring further stability that I tend to lose track of the bigger picture.


I appreciate the advice so far. I'm still leaning towards purchasing, but I need to run through some additional number-crunching and understanding my real risk tolerance to make sure I'm not making an unbalanced decision. I don't indulge in spending like this, so even considering it automatically triggers my brain to react due to significant deviation from baseline. My current car still runs and looks fine, so I'm not at a forced decision point.

Bardlebee said:

Have you tried test driving the vehicle?

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I test drove a P85 last year as that's all they seem to have for test drives at the time (I assume it's a way to give solid first impressions to newcomers to Tesla). Since I had already seen dozens of test drives on YouTube, nothing surprised me. Floored it, got what I expected. Had more road noise than I wanted, but that's probably due to the 21" wheel setup. I walked away thinking, "It's just a car, you don't really need this crap." Well, it may be just a car, but it's apparently compelling enough that I still keep thinking about it and here I am again salivating at the prospect. And I'm not really into cars at all. If something is still nagging me after nine months, I should admit I'm emotionally biased towards it.

Alysashley79 said:

Minus tires and insurance(because those are things you will have on the MS as well) how much have you say paid for gas in those 230k miles? Repairs? Etc..

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Since 12/00 (when I picked up my current vehicle from the dealership), I've spent $25,935.07 on gas. I'd ballpark the repairs around 10 - 15k (I'd have to go through multiple databases to get the exact number for fluid changes and parts, timing belts, minor repairs, smog checks, plug changes, and so on). I did some of the small work myself, so I could add up my own hourly-rate for those things but it's probably negligible in the grand scheme. So about $60k over 14 years.

If there was no Model S in existence, I'd probably be looking at buying a 40k European sedan if my car was on the fritz. But since the EV world has changed, if I'm spending 40k for a traditional ICE vehicle, at that threshold I'd easily consider looking at the S85. It all comes down to the up-front sticker shock, I guess, and the number of unknowns such as repair costs after the warranty expires.

Assuming my current car works fine for another five years, I could just wait for the long-awaited low-cost model. That'd be the most practical as I'd also save a lot in the process, but I wonder how close that model would be compared what's available today. That's part of the dice roll, because today's model is very motivating. I'm just hesitant to allow myself the, "...because I deserve it!" excuse because that's too easy.

If I were to move forward on buying this year, I suspect I'd start cutting back on eating out often, etc. due to the psychological factor.