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by nwienert 782 days ago
Who spends 10k/year on a car, that seems incredibly high. Also I'd say most people spend more than 10k/year indirectly on upgrading their health, but I'd count things like "not eating cheap food all the time" as one of those, or for example, moving to a places in less crime-ridden areas. And people rationally will spend money like that before they try experimental drugs.

Also - you can't really go buy this OTC anyway so it's not really a substitutable good.

A bit aside, I am bullish on these compounds. Tirzepatide is a discovery on the same order of magnitude as any - even potentially bigger than all the recent ML stuff. It's not even close to it's full potential. The data shows it's the only thing we have that really squashes diabetes and obesity with minimal side effects, but also has big positive effects on addiction, heart, bones, liver, brain, and immune system.

The addiction effects alone could change the world tremendously for the better if it's made easier to get and easier to ingest. I gave one of my Mounjaro shots I wasn't going to use to someone who had been trying to quit cigarettes for a decade and they were basically in tears a few days later telling me they went two full days without smoking, the first time they'd ever even gone a few hours since they were young.

4 comments

> Who spends 10k/year on a car, that seems incredibly high.

You may need to recalibrate your intuition. Average payment on a new car purchase in the US is almost $9,000/year. Average used car payment is >$6,000/year. This is before taxes, insurance, gas, etc. It is common to spend $10,000/year on owning a car in the US.

The Americans who don't spend a lot of money on car-related expenses are the outliers. Despite this, the median American household still has $12,000 per year leftover after all of their ordinary expenses like paying for cars. Average Americans have high incomes, profligate spending patterns, and poor savings behavior.

Once you pay off the car, the monthly payment becomes $0. Most people don’t replace with a brand new car every 3-5 years.
You still have oil changes, preventative maintenance, gasoline, and insurance to pay
Avoid using averages: they are meaningless to the average person.
> Who spends 10k/year on a car[?]

The average new car buyer. The average payment on a new car is now $726 per this source (some sources have even higher numbers). That's about $8700 per year. That plus insurance, fuel, and maintenance puts you well over $10k.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-auto-loan-payments-ex...

Car payments aren't "spending money on a new car". You don't own it yet, you're still buying it.

The insurance, fuel and maintenance are correct though.

If you put 200,000 miles on a $50,000 40 mpg car over 10 years, that's $50,000 for the car, $15,000 for insurance, $25,000 for gas, and almost certainly more than $10,000 for tires, maintenance and repairs.

There is a rule of thumb that the purchase price of the car is 1/3 of the cost over its lifetime. That's pretty generous in 2024 since cars now have better mileage, better reliability and cost more, but it's almost certainly more than half the cost.

That's over $10,000 a year

The average car purchase price in the US is under 34k
Does that include used vehicles? Average for new is $47k. https://fortune.com/2024/02/28/how-expensive-new-used-cars-o...

And new is appropriate, since used price is payment from one owner to another. IOW, if one side of the transaction gets a good deal the other gets a bad one, leaving average unchanged.

Average annual capital cost is new price divided by lifetime.

First - the average number there is according to Kelly Blue Books "proprietary editorial process", and I have doubts. Given it's spiked in recent years too we can assume that 90% of people today aren't at this new inflated price even if it's true and likely many more are holding out or buying used now.

Second - every one of your numbers is rounded up quite a bit, especially mileage as the average mileage would be 135k by year 10.

Third - You left out selling your 50k car in year 10 given 135k miles.

Fourth - EAC, one way to get to the truth, not the only.

I never claimed the numbers were average. The OP claimed that $10,000 a year on a car is uncommon. I'm saying that you don't have to go much above average to pay $10,000 a year on your car -- that spending $10,000 a year is common, even if a little less than 50% of people do so.
I'd guess closer to 10% than 50% do, the more average amount would be closer to 5k/year making the original claim pretty far off.
$10k/yr on a car is not incredibly high

https://www.edmunds.com/bmw/x3/2022/cost-to-own/

Did you just link a high end SUV as proof?
It's not far off. The average new car transaction price is now $47K. I can't understand how so many people are able to afford such expensive cars but somehow they're making it work.

https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/kbb-atp-january-2...

It comes to buy price minus sell price. People buying 47k cars are not driving them to ground or totally writing off them outside rare cases. Not that it is not still significant sum of money, but there is also large second hand market involved.
Not just that but 47 is the average for a new car. Average used is 27. From a cursory look 70% of cars are bought used.

So the actual average purchase price is closer to 34.

"incredibly high". This means finding an amount that high strains believability. I don't own one but I see X3s every time I commute to work. Obviously I see far more expensive cars too but I wanted to keep it somewhat reasonable.
Yes it does strain believability because it’s far off reality.

The average purchase price for a car is about $33.5k in the US. That BMW starts at 47.

Yes, 10k/yr is higher than average but it is not impossible and it isn't unheard of. It's believable.