.......and it's easy to run a BMW 140i if it's on a PCP deal. You don't need to be wealthy to do that.
He is doing it on PCP, I suspect around £300-400 monthly payments don’t know details yet. He was considering an M2
That said if I cancelled my pension contributions and my share stocks monthly payments I could do it. But I’m not really keen on that
I remember a conversation with a bloke called Danny about his "purchase" of an Aldi A4 Sline. I was his production manager, and drove a mk2 cavalier sri which cost me £40, but which had done me proud for 3 years and 60K.
Danny lived in one of the less nice bits of Runcorn utopia.
Danny "Have you seen my new car? It's a SLine Leather seats, 18 inch alloys, privacy windows....blah blah blah....It makes your car look shit" (Remember now I'm the guy that decides the overtime and the performance bonus on a random whim, so that's how stupidly familiar he is)
Me " It's not new but i'll give you that it is really nice, Danny. None of my business, but how much would I have to pay for a car like that? " (I genuinely have no interest in any car built in the last 10 years, so have no idea how much they cost new or second hand)
Him "£278 a month, it's got heated leather and lcd dials and ......blah blah blah"
Me "Yeah, but how much did it cost......I mean If I wanted to buy one like it, and wanted to pay cash how much would I have to pay"
Him "Nobody pays cash, it's £278 a month"
Me "Over how long ?......Do you get to own it? and does that include servicing and a warranty"
Him "Over 4 years, and then I'll give it back and get something else"
Me "Right"
.....
3 months later
Him "Hey, why's the overtime being cut back? There's nothing on Sunday and I'll be too pissed on Friday to work Saturday morning"
Me "The Indian's have come on line. The customer is saving £10K a week on import duty, so I don't think we'll be shipping from the UK, unless there's a problem" (Our new sister company had sent 10 engineers to come and be trained and take ideas and tool drawings and they'd been in the factory for 6 months prior to this so hardly a surprise)
Me "Plus there's a global recession, so we might have to cut the work force or go on short time if it gets worse"
Danny "Shit. opps."
Me "What's wrong Danny? I know we are all going to suffer....I mean they don't actually need 4 production managers, and I'm not that good at it, so I'm shitting it." (I thought that might help the mood)
Danny "I won't be able to afford the payments on the car, and I've just remortgaged the house to pay off some of our debts, and spent the rest on a holiday and now me bird's pregnant....How will I be able to afford it?"
Me "Not get pissed on Friday night and take Saturdays overtime whilst you still can"
This is the same bloke who offered to break the legs of a guy who'd sold me a Calibre, with a breaked engine. For free. I declined his kind offer. It was my fault that I didn't spot the obvious.