I'm such a yuppie.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

And I couldn’t be happier! :smiley:
This is about as M and P and Mundane and Pointless can be. Just putting that out there.

This past Saturday, I moved one step towards yuppie-dom at the Toyota dealership. After much careful consideration and analyzation, I realized that I could not live another day without a new car, specifically: the Highlander. Yup, an SUV. The vehicle of choice of suburban soccer moms and, well, suburban soccer moms.

Being 20 and, well, creditless, I had to appeal to the big guy. My father’s background is accounting, you see; so, this would be far from an easy sale on his end. To make things easier, I spent two hours haggling with the salesman. The MSRP on this particular model was $36,000, but I- being the smart little shopper I am- knew the invoice was $30,000. I ended up getting them down to a price of $31,000 flat.

It was then that I realized they had a leasing special, so we went that route. After much debate, I got the sales manager to go down from $500 a month payments, to $350 (with gap on a 20,000 mile a year lease-- we go out of town twice a month for work). I eventually was able to convince my father of this wonderful deal and he agreed to cosign (yes, I get to make that lovely payment myself, I’m not that spoiled).

“But Diosa,” you’re surely asking, “I mean, yeah, an SUV is a yuppie- mobile, but that doesn’t really make you a yuppie, per se”. Well, dear friends, I not only got an SUV- I got a HYBRID SUV.
And this morning, I went through the drive thru at Starbucks and paid $3 for a mocha. Aside from the requisite stigma, yuppiedom ain’t so bad.
Oh, look at my precious. He’s so cute. My roomie and I have nicknamed him “HP” or “The Hybrid Pimp.” You see, he’ll backhand you if you don’t give him his money, but he also has low emissions and cares about baby seals. :wink:

2

I said it before and I’ll say it again: that is one totally SWEET car.

So, uh, when do I get to go for a ride? :smiley:

3

Did you hear about the yuppie that was in a car accident?

It was a real Saab story.

4

Awwww! Boo! Hiss! :wink:
Spatial Rift 47, you can go for a ride when you aren’t 3,000 miles away. It just makes more sense, logistically.

5

::: applause :::

I am waiting for my 2006 Honda Pilot … which I will get in 2008. :smiley:

6

I’m not sure I can af-Ford to listen to jokes like this. You Audi be shot.

7

[QUOTE=DiosaBellissima]
Spatial Rift 47, you can go for a ride when you aren’t 3,000 miles away. It just makes more sense, logistically.QUOTE]
Details, details, details. :cool:

8

You know, Honda has the KING of all end of the year sales. A few years ago, I got a brand new Accord for $199 a month (the midrange one-- LX) and 0 down. Of course, that car was then totalled when an evil, SUV driving harpy hit me and put me in the hospital. Of course, irony of all ironies, now I’m an evil SUV driving harpy. Sweet!

Oh, the point of that was: check around their site and dealership- your Pilot might be more accessible then you thought.

9

Warning about hybrids - when you are running electric only, pedestrians will walk right out in front of you because they don’t hear you and are too stupid to look.

Said by a Prius co-owner (Mr. SCL drives it most of the time) who has almost collected two hood ornaments in less than a year.

10

SnakesCatLady, thank you for the good advice. Of course, people are idiots and will walk in front of an 18 wheeler without looking, so I don’t think there’s much I can do about that one.

I’m still getting used to the turning it on by barely turning the key and getting no noise. So weird! But exciting. :smiley:

11

Wow!
I sure wasn’t driving any $30,000 new car when I was 20.
I think at that time I was driving a $700 used Datson.
(Hell, I’m not driving a $30,000 car now that I’m 45!)
Of course, I was in school, had no way to afford 350 monthly payments (or $3 coffees.)

12

When I was 20 (in 1991) I was driving a 1982 VW Rabbit. That ate oil. And had a passenger door that sometimes wouldn’t open without help from a screwdriver. And would wind up with water pooled under the pedals when it rained (in the winter it would be like a little ice rink in there).

Damn, I miss that car. :smiley:

It cost about $1600, and my father bought it for me in 1990 so I could work while I was away at school.

13

Well, I go to school full time (two majors!) and work full time. I’m just good with my money- afterall, my dad is an accountant. Although I work for my dad, he pays me about $5 less an hour than he pays the other folks that do the same, mostly because they have college degrees and I don’t. That said, I work my lil booty off much more then any of my friends.

Speaking of which, that’s a pet peeve of mine. I’ve got a ton of friends that regularly call me spoiled because I’ve got some nice things. These are the same friends that refuse to work more than 10 hours a week (even during the summer), make minimum wage, refuse to find other work, and are constantly whining they don’t have money. Throughout the summer, I’m working 40+ hours a week and during school I do almost 35. I pay my own rent, my own car, for my own food, my own clothes, my own hair. . . but I’m “spoiled”. Bah. I just think most of my friends don’t understand what it means to work more than 2 days a week and to not ask mom and dad for cash. Bah! :slight_smile:

14

Oh. . .

GET OFF MY LAWN! And no, you can’t have your damn frisbee back!!"

15

Heck, enjoy the car.
Sounds like you are earning the $.

When I see/hear of folks who have really nice things at a relatively early age, I can’t avoid comparing/contrasting that with my experience, as well as wondering what they’ll be looking forward to when they start really making money.

I’m also just a little surprised that an accountant would think it a prudent financial move for a 20 year old student with no credit to make lease payments on what impresses me as a pretty darn sweet ride. But then again, I’m no accountant.

BTW, I assume you are paying for your room and board, no? College tuition?

16

No worries about the comparison- after all, for years I drove a 1994 Ford Explorer with no air, no cd player, and no airbags. :slight_smile: (Which my dad still has, mind you heh).

I suppose my dad sees it as Ok since he knows how much I make (since he signs the checks). I failed to mention before that I also work off of commission: I get 10% of the retainer from new clients I sign . My father is a very smart man, but isn’t much of a people person. I, on the other hand, inherited my mother’s personality. In the last 3 months I’ve been working sales, his business has at least doubled. If nothing else, I think he realizes that even if he were to have to take over the payments, it’s worth it in the business I’ve been bringing him. Of course, that it’s tremendously unlikely that he’d have to take on the payment indefinitely.

And financial stuff aside, this is a safe car. As I linked above, I was in a pretty bad car accident a few Februaries ago- one where I got pretty messed up. My dad has two cars (of which he’s let me borrow one since my accident): the 94 Ford with no airbags (clearly not safe, since my airbag saved my life) and the 2000 BMW Z3 (which is quite safe, but still a teeny little shoebox in this land of 1000 Ford F-250s). The safety was a huge factor for him.

Yes, I pay for my apartment (I moved out last month! Yay for being a big kid!), which I share with a roomie. I basically don’t ever ask my dad for cash for anything. That said, he does pay for my health and car insurance, my cell phone, and (the big one) my tuition. I fully admit it’s a sweet deal, but it was a deal that was made because I agreed to stay home where tuition is $4000 a year, instead of going to Georgetown ($40,000 a year). Also, like I mentioned, me staying home has really helped his business a ton.

17

I forgot to mention: I don’t mean to come across as a snot or anything. I am more than appreciative and thankful that I’ve got a dad that is both able and willing to help me out in the way he does. Even though I have friends whose parents pay for even more, I have just as many friends with parents that can’t or just don’t want to help them at all. I know I’ve got a pretty sweet deal and I work my hardest to make sure I can make the most out of it (and make sure my dad gets something out of it too-- hence the working my tail off at his office).

18

My friend was…because he’s an idiot. He had a bunch of money saved up from his dads landscaping business so the first thing he does with it when he graduates college is buy a low end Mercedes. The worst thing of all is that he would NEVER DRIVE IT. We still had to go clubbing and bar hopping in his stupid Toyota Camry or my Olds Cutlass Sierra.

19

And I don’t mean to come across as a cranky old curmudgeon (tho I may, in fact, be one!) Just coming from the perspective of a parent of 3 teens. Each parent has tremendous latitude within which to make up the rules and expectations he/she imposes upon their spawn. Which can be a daunting exercise in making it up as you go along, as there is no rulebook, and the realities generally differ somewhat from your best laid plans.

I’ve posted before that I’ve considered buying my kids cars when they turned 21, or graduated from college. But I had thought more along the lines of giving them our 6 or so year-old used Toyota Matrix. And I intend to pay my kids’ tuition, room & board (at least if they go to a state school).

For whatever reason, my wife and I got from our parents that - barring 0% financing of somesuch, cars should be bought for cash. And we pretty much avoid any debt other than house mortgage. But obviously the vast majority of folk disagree with us.

I also dislike that in my present consumer and prestige driven community I see what I consider too many rich high school kids driving Beemers, Benzes, Volvos, and Porsches.

I fully acknowledge that your accident is a significant factor to your desiring a larger car.

Just explaining a little more where I’m coming from.

Toyotas are great cars - I’ve bought 5 of them and currently own 2. And good job with the hybrid.

(Still won’t find me buying no $3 cup of joe!)

20

Can yuppies live in Bakersfield? I’m not sure about that one. :smiley:

(Sorry, but I grew up there–went to Norris School–and have many memories of cotton fields, decrepit downtown areas, and…um, dust, I guess.)