Getting a lump sum, how do i get my dream car?

[ev_buyer]

I'm after some advice.

Before i begin. This isn't meant to be a show off, I've just never ever been in this position (nor ever thought i'd be here, i'm from very humble beginnings) I'm asking this question on here rather than money saving expert because I'm a petrol head at heart (although i've got an EV) and hoping people on here will get where i'm coming from

Situation
I'm 42, married, 3 dependants 16, 13 & 10. (And think they'll all go to uni)
Mortgage of £360,000 @ 3.90% on £800,000 house. Joint income of £240k+. We're comfortable and in safe jobs. No other debt. Salary Sacrifice EV and paid for family car.

Whats happening:
25% of my company share options are being acquired / released next week and I'm about to get £750,000!!!
EMI eligible @10%. tax. Leaving £675K!!.
The remaining 75% of my share options will be released over the next 3+ years and hopefully will be higher as the company grows. (But i know could be nothing if stuff goes south)

My wife and I want to get new kitchen, driveway and remodel and have £170K budgeted. She wants to pay off mortgage. (I don't) That would leave £155K if we did. Obviously I want to try and save and invest the money and both continue working to hopefully cut down hours when the 75% is released over the next 3+ years.

Can someone give me some idea of how i can get the chance to own a dream car. (I am 100% sure i deserve it ) I'm needing man maths help.

I'd like a stupid car to sit on my drive and admire, 2nd hand, 2-3 years old, once in a lifetime thing before I look like an old git having a mid life. I probably am already.

So what car should I get? and how i finance in a way to convince the wife it's not gonna lose a too much money. Should i just pay it all off the car? Keep mortgage and invest?

Ie. https://preowned.astonmartin.com/en_gb/vdp/2532010...

£40,000 down it's £1040 per month but the £61K final payment makes me feel sick. Maintenance, insurance and petrol etc. Am i being unrealistic and irresponsible here?

[Sheets Tabuer]

Get the AM and a defender, you'll look like proper money as most are given to JLR managers.

Good luck whatever you do.

[LooneyTunes]

Congratulations! Nice position to be in.

ev_buyer said:

I'm after some advice.
So what car should I get? and how i finance in a way to convince the wife it's not gonna lose a too much money. Should i just pay it all off the car? Keep mortgage and invest?

Ie. https://preowned.astonmartin.com/en_gb/vdp/2532010...

£40,000 down it's £1040 per month but the £61K final payment makes me feel sick. Maintenance, insurance and petrol etc. Am i being unrealistic and irresponsible here?

That car is less than 20% of what you’ll clear, and 2/3 of what you’re spending on the house.

I would suggest that something nice for your wife and you\re sorted.

Get it test driven. Get it bought. Don’t mess around with financing it. If any further justification is needed, treat it as a “rainy day fund on wheels”…

Fwiw, I wooed consider then also clearing the mortgage and/or looking for tax efficient ways to invest some of the rest. Getting rid of a chunk of the mortgage will also make a positive contribution to monthly liquidity. If you leave too much in cash you’ll end up paying tax on the interest, but you don’t pay tax on the interest you save on the mortgage…

[LRDefender]

Congratulations on your potential windfall.

I have to be honest and say your wife is the sensible one here. Paying interest on a mortgage and car is a bit silly. Pay the mortgage off, do the improvements to the house, pension and investments for the kids cuture education. Nice car when the next share option comes along.

[LooneyTunes]

LRDefender said:

Congratulations on your potential windfall.

I have to be honest and say your wife is the sensible one here. Paying interest on a mortgage and car is a bit silly. Pay the mortgage off, do the improvements to the house, pension and investments for the kids cuture education. Nice car when the next share option comes along.

The kids education should be well and truly sorted by the cash freed up by the absence of mortgage payments.

Assuming the chap has put in some proper work to get to this position, getting a trinket of some sort to mark/remember the event seems entirely appropriate. It can be sold if the other payments never appear but I’d wager he’d be pretty gutted if they didn’t and he never got his dream car.

[Wilmslowboy]

Assume its going to cost you circa 25% 1st year of the car's value for deprecation, maintenance, insurance etc (assuming you buy from a dealer and sell back into trade)

That £120k car will be circa £2.5k a month, might be better to take out one of those no long term commitment subscriptions, and see if you will enjoy having access to a sport car etc

I know its not a AM but give an idea of how it works and costs etc

https://www.drivepivotal.com/vehicles/jaguar-f-typ...

Edited by Wilmslowboy on Wednesday 18th September 10:50

[IJWS15]

LRDefender said:

Congratulations on your potential windfall.

I have to be honest and say your wife is the sensible one here. Paying interest on a mortgage and car is a bit silly. Pay the mortgage off, do the improvements to the house, pension and investments for the kids cuture education. Nice car when the next share option comes along.

I agree with him, pay off the mortgage and get the car when the next tranche arrives. At least you will have some idea of what labour are going to take off you by then.

Is the company being bought or just buying back the shares?

[zedmtrappe]

TBH I'm struggling to understand how a guy who's built a company worth £3m by the age 41, would be asking on a forum whether it's a good idea to buy a £ 117K car on finance ??

[Batfoy]

ev_buyer said:

I'm after some advice.

Before i begin. This isn't meant to be a show off, I've just never ever been in this position (nor ever thought i'd be here, i'm from very humble beginnings) I'm asking this question on here rather than money saving expert because I'm a petrol head at heart (although i've got an EV) and hoping people on here will get where i'm coming from

Situation
I'm 42, married, 3 dependants 16, 13 & 10. (And think they'll all go to uni)
Mortgage of £360,000 @ 3.90% on £800,000 house. Joint income of £240k+. We're comfortable and in safe jobs. No other debt. Salary Sacrifice EV and paid for family car.

Whats happening:
25% of my company share options are being acquired / released next week and I'm about to get £750,000!!!
EMI eligible @10%. tax. Leaving £675K!!.
The remaining 75% of my share options will be released over the next 3+ years and hopefully will be higher as the company grows. (But i know could be nothing if stuff goes south)

My wife and I want to get new kitchen, driveway and remodel and have £170K budgeted. She wants to pay off mortgage. (I don't) That would leave £155K if we did. Obviously I want to try and save and invest the money and both continue working to hopefully cut down hours when the 75% is released over the next 3+ years.

Can someone give me some idea of how i can get the chance to own a dream car. (I am 100% sure i deserve it ) I'm needing man maths help.

I'd like a stupid car to sit on my drive and admire, 2nd hand, 2-3 years old, once in a lifetime thing before I look like an old git having a mid life. I probably am already.

So what car should I get? and how i finance in a way to convince the wife it's not gonna lose a too much money. Should i just pay it all off the car? Keep mortgage and invest?

Ie. https://preowned.astonmartin.com/en_gb/vdp/2532010...

£40,000 down it's £1040 per month but the £61K final payment makes me feel sick. Maintenance, insurance and petrol etc. Am i being unrealistic and irresponsible here?

Hmm. There’s oversharing and then there’s oversharing. Given that this is PH I’m surprised there hasn’t been a storm of vitriolic comments.

[SunsetZed]

IJWS15 said:

LRDefender said:

Congratulations on your potential windfall.

I have to be honest and say your wife is the sensible one here. Paying interest on a mortgage and car is a bit silly. Pay the mortgage off, do the improvements to the house, pension and investments for the kids cuture education. Nice car when the next share option comes along.

I agree with him, pay off the mortgage and get the car when the next tranche arrives. At least you will have some idea of what labour are going to take off you by then.

Is the company being bought or just buying back the shares?

I disagree. As you say you can do the work on the house, clear the mortgage, buy the car and have 150k left to invest / spend on other things.

If all goes well you might want to change the car next time or you might say I've done that, didn't live up to expectations I'll not bother but either way you'll know. I generally believe it's better to regret trying things than not trying things.

I'm assuming you'd rather invest than clear the mortgage which I get but personally I think playing it safe would be good as you can't put a value on knowing that you own your house entirely for some people and it sounds like your wife is one of those people.

[ChocolateFrog]

Just get what you want. I'd guess most 2-3 year old supercars are going to be an eye-watering total cost of ownership so just make sure you really want it.

[Sheepshanks]

Meet with a financial planner. They’ll tell you how to retire in a few years and get the car.

PH is slipping, no mention of building a BTL portfolio!

[dave123456]

I’ll come at this from a different angle, I’m probably in a not dissimilar position.

Are you 100% sure this windfall won’t change your appetite for work?

I wouldn’t rush into a dream car, in my experience they are a liability, not just financially but in terms of the worry on the occasions you do use it.

Based on the above is there something you would like to do with your elongated retirement? A lifestyle business? Often fairly small businesses can make a decent turn if they are run in a way that doesn’t NEED to make a living for the owner.

I’d certainly not rush into a new motor, I reckon within 3 months it won’t be returning the joy that you hoped for.

Just my opinion…

[muscatdxb]

My approach in the past has been to buy the car in the knowledge that I’ll get bored, sell it and then do something more sensible with the cash. I viewed it as paying for a car with a 2% mortgage as it was at the time. After 6 months I get bored with a fancy car and feel guilty about it sat there with money tied up so no harm done.

I wouldn’t do it with that much debt though. Interest and depreciation together would hurt.

[shirt]

nice position to be in.

if it were me i'd pay off the mortgage, buy a used car around 100k and book a truly excellent holiday for the family. with those other share options its not like you have to wait very long until you can chop the car again should you wish to.

[Electronicpants]

Hate to be the boring one, but clear the mortgage, you never know what's round the corner, and for the love of god, don't take the car out on finance.

If you are going to spend that kind of cash on a toy, then get something cash that wont depreciate too immensely like a special 911 or something.

[Nezquick]

Personally, i'd be paying off the mortgage and funding the home improvements. Which with my math's leaves you with £145k.

If you put £45k down on the car, you've got a nice round £100k left for a rainy day/investments.

The monthlies on the car should easily be covered by what you'd no longer be paying on the mortgage and as someone said above, if it all goes south, you can always get rid of the car and free up your money.

As someone else has also suggested, some good independent financial advice is definitely the way to go before you start splashing the cash!

[LooneyTunes]

zedmtrappe said:

TBH I'm struggling to understand how a guy who's built a company worth £3m by the age 41, would be asking on a forum whether it's a good idea to buy a £ 117K car on finance ??

From what he’s written, it sounds more like employee shares?

dave123456 said:

I wouldn’t rush into a dream car, in my experience they are a liability, not just financially but in terms of the worry on the occasions you do use it.

As an alternative perspective, I’ve bought nice cars each time I’ve had significant deals complete.

There are some cracking memories associated with them. Trip to collect them, the sense of satisfaction when you pay for them, weekends away with MrsLT, and more recently road trips with the kids. Those are worth far more than the cars have cost in maintenance/depreciation.

Yes, you have to get the liability/worry part out of your mind and that does take time, but it’s worth doing.

The alternative is to live like my father: he kept being sensible and putting off the the one trip he always wanted to take, and will now never accomplish. Could have done it any time over a 20 year period but didn’t. Regret vs memories? I’ll take the latter…

[dave123456]

LooneyTunes said:

zedmtrappe said:

TBH I'm struggling to understand how a guy who's built a company worth £3m by the age 41, would be asking on a forum whether it's a good idea to buy a £ 117K car on finance ??

From what he’s written, it sounds more like employee shares?

dave123456 said:

I wouldn’t rush into a dream car, in my experience they are a liability, not just financially but in terms of the worry on the occasions you do use it.

As an alternative perspective, I’ve bought nice cars each time I’ve had significant deals complete.

There are some cracking memories associated with them. Trip to collect them, the sense of satisfaction when you pay for them, weekends away with MrsLT, and more recently road trips with the kids. Those are worth far more than the cars have cost in maintenance/depreciation.

Yes, you have to get the liability/worry part out of your mind and that does take time, but it’s worth doing.

The alternative is to live like my father: he kept being sensible and putting off the the one trip he always wanted to take, and will now never accomplish. Could have done it any time over a 20 year period but didn’t. Regret vs memories? I’ll take the latter…

Agree. Like I said only my opinion.

And I did offer an alternative suggestion.

[Muzzer79]

LRDefender said:

Congratulations on your potential windfall.

I have to be honest and say your wife is the sensible one here. Paying interest on a mortgage and car is a bit silly. Pay the mortgage off, do the improvements to the house, pension and investments for the kids cuture education. Nice car when the next share option comes along.

Gotta say, I'm in this camp too.

Or, get a cheaper toy to tide you over and provide motoring excitement, then get the nice car later.