There’s an old saying in golf, “drive for show, putt for dough.” Hitting a massive 300-yard bomb looks beautiful, but what really counts is accurate putting. Well let me introduce you to a new saying, “Own one car for show and another car for dough.”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost money on the golf course because I three-putted instead of two-putted. I’ve also occasionally won money squeezing in an eight-footer. Those knee-knockers, when all is on the line during an Aloha bet, are intense!
Give me a regular 250-yard drive and incredible putting accuracy over a 300-yard drive and putting yips all day long. The same goes for cars.
I’m a one car type of guy. Owning a car is expensive, especially if you don’t follow my 1/10th rule. With the proliferation of cheap ridesharing options that have emerged since 2009, not owning a car is making more and more sense.
But over the years, I’ve had a tremendous number of complaints that my 1/10th rule is too restrictive. Instead of limiting the median American household to only spending $6,200 on a car, many people feel the typical American should be able to spend much more.
If you want to spend more, it’s totally up to you. Don’t let me tell you what to do. I’m just offering a simple rule to follow to help you achieve financial independence sooner, rather than later.
For those of you who love cars and want to own two or more cars, I suggest owning at least a Dough Car. If you do, you might build your net worth quicker than the rest. You might even better keep yourself out of trouble.
The First Car For Show
Your Show Car is also known as your splurge car. No one really needs more than a five-year-old Toyota Corolla to get from one place to the next. Thus, your Show car might be a luxury sports car or a rare classic car. Or your Show Car may just be simply nicer than a used economy car.
A Show Car is your choice ride on the weekends. You may take it on the backroads with your buddies who are in your car enthusiasts club. This car is really just for your personal pleasure.
Even though you adore your Show Car, you don’t want to be seen driving it by people who could cost you money. For example, colleagues, competitors, school administrators, etc.
The Second Car Is For Dough
Alternatively, your Dough Car is your every day, unassuming ride. It is your 8-year-old Honda Civic with a dent in the passenger side door. Or, perhaps your Dough Car is a dirty old truck with dents in the side and mismatched tires.
This is a great car to drive around town because you don’t care what happens to it. If someone bashes your bumper when parallel parking, who cares!
Your goal is to be seen in your Dough Car by everyone. Ideally, your show car is your beater car and not some fancy electric car.
Benefits Of A Dough Car
I’ll give you two recent examples which demonstrate why having a Dough Car is important. I’ll also give a third example from when I was working.
1) Gain Customers
Once when I was remodeling, I had an appointment for a window treatments saleswoman to stop by my house. The consult was free with the hope that she would sell me a bunch of window shades.
When she arrived, she rolled up in a brand new ~$70,000 BMW X5. As soon as I saw her car, I frowned. Based on her expensive car, it was likely her products would be very expensive. I was hoping to make a good deal but now had doubts.
When she came up to my house, I was even further dismayed. She was wearing $800 Manolo Blahnik shoes and $600 Prada sunglasses.
We spent the next hour looking at samples until I picked my favorite. As she departed, she said she would email me by the end of the day with a quote.
My budget for 11 windows was $5,000 but she came back with a quote for $9,181!
Wow that’s expensive. All I could think about was how huge her profit margins must be. Even though I was able to change a few options and get the price down, I decided to look at a different vendor.
When want to win customers, driving up in a Show Car could be detrimental. Every financially savvy potential client will think your fancy car is from profiting too much from your clients.
2) Increase Your Chances At Financial Aid
Three preschools we applied to asked what type of car we drive. The reason they ask is related to seeing who qualifies for financial aid. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to subsidize parents driving a luxury automobile versus those who are driving a used economy car or taking the bus.
So perhaps you can increase your chances of getting financial aid if you own a Dough Car. But you’ll likely have to provide a copy of your tax returns or pay stubs in any case.
However, one potential downside is a Dough Car could lead an elite school to perceive you as too poor and lacking in status to be admitted. Ridiculous yes, but that’s the BS, competitive society we live in today.
Ultimately, be aware that many academic institutions and employers make assumptions about your wealth based on the car you drive.
3) Get Paid More And Promoted Faster
I’ve told this story before, but while I was in banking, I once hired a 22-year-old first-year analyst. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a pretty cocky and immature guy.
He drove a $50,000 Acura MDX SUV to work, which was more expensive than 70% of the cars in the employee parking lot. Everybody quickly found out that his parents bought it for him. He already had a bad attitude working against him. And then his expensive car made things even worse.
His year-end bonus was slashed by $10,000. The bonus committee felt that not only was he underperforming, he didn’t need the money since he was already rich. That $10,000 went to pay someone else.
Later, he ended up getting fired after his second year.
Owning Only A Show Car Is Not Ideal
If you are only going to own one car, you should own a dough car that will help you get ahead and make money. Owning only a show car is a suboptimal financial move.
If you only own one car, and it is a Show Car, this could put you in a bind. On the one hand, you want to own the nicest car possible since you will only have one. On the other hand, however, owning a Show Car might make you a target.
Although nobody thus far has given me any grief for owning a Tata Motors SUV, I sometimes feel like an oddball when I drive to my Saturday softball meetup games. Everybody is pretty down-to-earth, with the nicest car in the lot being a Tesla Model 3, a ~$50,000 car fully loaded.
I also feel kinda bad when teachers see me picking up my son from preschool. Preschool teachers only make between $40,000 – $70,000, depending on experience. Further, there are several parents who bike their kids to school.
I’ve tinted my windows black so it’s difficult to see me while I’m driving (illegal in California). But that’s not enough to stay stealth because I’ve inevitably got to get out of my car.
When I drove a Honda Fit for three years, I always felt great everywhere I went. Although I experienced a lot more car bullying on the road, it felt great blending in with my surroundings. Most of the time, my Honda Fit was also the cheapest car in the parking lot.
Too bad I had to give it up because there was no way I was going to drive a baby in a car with such small crumple zones and thin doors.
You Will Grow Into Your Show Car
Even if you only own a Show Car, know that things will get better because of three things.
The first thing is that your car will depreciate in value every day. If you hold on to it for at least 10 years, it will eventually not be worth much at all. My plan is to own Beast Master for at least 10 years and then consider buying an electric vehicle. In another seven years, Beast Master will be 12 years old and be worth less than $20,000.
The second thing is that you will probably make more money every year. Part of the reason why following the 1/10th rule for car buying is so important is that you won’t feel as guilty buying any type of car. As the car’s value becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of your annual income and net worth, you will stop feeling as embarrassed about owning a Show Car.
The final thing is that you will get older. Nobody really cares if a 55-year-old drives a $110,000 Porsche 911S. If you’re in your 30s or younger, however, sometimes people will give you grief for driving a Show Car out of envy. Don’t drive a Show Car alone at night in Johannesburg or Manila. Chances are high you will get mugged at a stop light.
If you must own more than one car, make sure one of them is a Dough Car to help you blend in. On your road to financial independence, you never want to stand out too clearly. Protruding pegs tend to get knocked down.
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Readers, does anyone else have a Dough Car to hide you from society’s rage and judgement? If you are to only own one car, what would it be?
Note: for those wondering how the 1/10th rule for car buying applies to owning a Show Car and a Dough Car, the best practice is to have the total price of all cars be 10% or less than your annual gross salary.
Thank you! I’ve been preaching this for years to my friends. My dough car is a 12 year old VW and I still enjoy driving it. Yes, it sticks out like a sore thumb in my company’s parking lot (even my boss tells me to get a better car), but I can freely park it anywhere I want, especially when we go to rougher parts of town.
Great post. I purchased a 2015 Toyota Camry Hybrid nearly a year ago (with 90k miles) and plan on keeping that as my only car until the wheels fall off.
The price fit below the 1/10th rule, even before I knew that existed. Now at 110k miles, I find myself driving less than the first year, and the loan will be paid off in six months.
I drive 50 miles to and from work each day so hunted down an economical dough car. Spent £2,500 on a 2003 Audi A2 that had done 80,000 miles. It gets 70 MPG and I love it.
Having the show car for weekends actually makes the whole thing more palatable from an emotional stand point to me. It goes from, “this is all I can have” to “this is what i have chosen to have”. I think this only applies to those who care about cars though.
Hi FS,
I wonder your opinion re 1/10 rule towards brand new car or used car? Also, would you recommend cash, loan or lease, knowing I have money to buy in case but in the timeline 3-5y I could invest this money…
Thank you!
“Show Car” is fully loaded Tesla Model 3 and Dough Car is a 1998 Lexus ES 300 with 187K miles. My wife wants to get rid of the dough car and get a new Lexus SUV :( – I won’t show her the 1/10th chart, otherwise she’ll want a RRS!
That’s a nice spread! I think your wife will love the Lexus SUV. Is she lugging around kids in it?
The mid-size to smaller size Lexus SUVs could be considered Dough Cars, as their design is understated. But not brand new.
No kids! She rarely drives (takes Uber almost everywhere or walks). She wants the SUV in advance of any children in the mix. 2017-2019 Lexus NX. A few years back we had to get the radio fixed on her 1998. The dealership loaner was a 2019 RX450 Hybrid. Now that was tempting! I see why they give loaners out..
Sam, the work scenario you described also happened to my friend so I totally agree that it is NEVER a good idea to have a better car than your boss (if you care about your career path).
My car is 12 years old although only 120K miles on it. Was planning to checking out a new car but just last week it was dinged by someone who did not even leave a note. I immediately realized that I would be more upset with my new car dinged so I will drive this one for a bit longer.
BTW I totally expect Uber and Lyft to raise prices and stop subsidizing passengers now that they are responsible to shareholders and free VC funding has run out.
If your 12 year old car with 120K miles on it still works, I’d keep that puppy for as long as possible.
I feel like you read our minds all the time! We have a nice car, SUV for our kids and longer trips then we have our commute car, 2015 prius which is paid for. The prius is an easy ride and if we take care of it my two year old daughter can learn to drive it too! I love this statement “You must not be seen in your Show Car by colleagues, competitors, school administrators, or anybody who might cost you money.” So true! Lol
Took over my wife’s 15 year old Lexus as my dough car, alittle banged up but takes me from point a to b and I don’t have to worry where I park the thing. Love driving my 4X4 SUV on the weekends.
Am now looking for a “fun car” I can take out to the scenic back roads by Mt. Tam. Hoping to come across a 69′ Camaro convertible(which I’ve always wanted since HS) or a current model Mazda Miata MX-5 convertible.
Go for the 69′ Camaro! One of my HS dream cars was a ’90 Mustang GT convertible. The rumble of the engine was the best.
Hi Sam! I just read about your 1/10th car rule and I’m still struggling…in the opposite way. Gross income is $400,000 and I drive a 2007 Hyundai. I will need a new car soon and have been looking at used cars for $15,000 or less but can’t find anything I like. $15,000 seems like so much money to spend on a car, let alone $40,000 (your 1/10th rule). I’m not normally that frugal but struggle with big purchases. I won’t take out a loan so maybe my problem is writing such a large check? Any advice?
Can you try and find a really lightly used car in the $25k range? Hats off to you for the ‘07 Hyundai making that much money. It sounds like you can more than afford it….that’s why I’m suggesting a lightly used (low miles) used vehicle. Good luck!
Love the dilemma! If you don’t want to spend $40K on a car, don’t! Consider the 1/10th rule as the absolute upper limit for you.
I love that you drive a 2007 Hyundai. If it’s safe and works, then keep it.
I got over my fear of spending more by thinking about safety and a little bit of YOLO. I wasn’t going to drive my baby in a Honda Fit anymore. So I had a reason to look for a larger, nicer car.
See: https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-safest-cars-to-survive-a-crash/
What do you drive for?
Curious to know, assuming you’re a w-2 employee. What’s your take home after taxes on $400k? I’ll be right at or just under that number this year but I own a business under an s-corp
I’ve had lots of luck with craigslist. Five times I’ve started looking on CL with a dollar amount in mind, maximum mileage etc. I take my time and when I find a vehicle in the ballpark, I run the make and model through carcomplaints.com, if it’s a solid year/make then I go take it for a drive and then offer cash money and negotiate anywhere from a hundred to a thousand bucks off. We found my dough car (2001 chevy prizm… aka “the chevy”), the replacement for the family minivan (the only car we bought we new and drove it into the ground, once the header gasket blew we donated it to public tv) cars for both of my kids, safe/4 door sedans with great track records etc. and my wife’s “show car”. Our income is just over 2 and we have a gov pension so our stability is high.
The caveats to this approach is that you deal with a lot of flakes on CL, on both sides of the transaction. I was very interested in one vehicle, a Toyota corolla, that was under-priced, when I called the owner he said I was #17 on the list, he called 3 days later and said no-one had showed up, he couldn’t believe it when I showed up a few hours later with an offer for cash. The second caveat is that I’m a mechanic by trade and don’t mind doing the work on our vehicles AND are not afraid of buying something that could develop issues a few months down the road (hasn’t happened once in five purchases).
If you can be patient and do a little bit of leg-work, CL can still be a great resource, but I have lots of free time/flexibility and not everyone has that luxury.
Try renting your neighbors cars or sharing yours with neighbors instead of this entitlement to own 2 cars just for yourself. Most cars are sitting parked 98% of their lifetime, such a waste of space and resources. Your ancestors would be ashamed at the consumption Sam! Check out Turo and Getaround car sharing apps like Airbnb for cars, I’ve been a host for 5 years.
First the wasteful restaurant food and packaging consumption post, now the car consumption, time to reflect what have you become? This is not the frugal simple Sam I remember=) Maybe the baby did something to you. Take it all with a sarcastic grain of salt and keep up the good work.
I’m glad you mentioned Realtors as an exception to the rule. This topic gets discussed on Realtor boards on a regular basis and the vote seems split 50-50 between Realtors who think you should drive a nice car to look successful and those who feel their client base will respect that they drive a practical car. I feel I found the middle ground with a used 3-series BMW which I bought from a client’s parents. That turned into a referral for more business also :)
After the kids were grown I bought my wife a 2012 Porsche Cayenne for her birthday (to replace the Toyota minivan she’d been driving for years). She ended up hating the Porsche and so I had to take over driving it :-). It now has 100,000 miles on it and I plan to drive it as long as it lasts. It is a sweet ride. My dough car is a 2007 Honda Ridgeline… which get’s a lot of use in our snowy, rural area.
As for my wife, she is thrilled with her Lexus RX350, which she plans to drive into the ground.
Fun post! I’m not a car fanatic by any means so I’m always curious when I see people spending a lot of money on brand new luxury cars. What I care about most is safety, easy to drive/park, and then comfort. What the car looks like or the brand doesn’t really matter to me.
Great examples about the blinds woman and that young guy you used to work with. I love that pic of the Honda Fit parked between those 2 trucks too. Now that’s an A+ parking job! :)
Made a mistake few years ago and bought a new fully loaded Nissan Murano for around CAD $35,000 CAD. The monthly payments are killing me! Instead of burying myself to debt, I used the car to make some side hustle – driving it for TAPP (ride sharing app in Canada). Made some few bucks and hope I can finish paying this car soon.
Love the idea of one dough and one show car, Sam, but strongly disagree about how they should be used. In your example of the shutters and blinds woman, you say that her car made you suspect she was overcharging you. Well of COURSE she was overcharging you — you’re a rich person living in a rich person’s neighborhood, and she suspected that you wouldn’t mind being charged a lot as long as you feel like you’re getting the best. A lot of very wealthy people shop in this way — that’s why Rolex does well, and Tesla, and Whole Foods. The saleswoman’s BMW X5 makes most people feel on some subliminal level like they’re getting the best blinds person. If she drove up in a beat-up Toyota people would resent paying $9,000 for window treatments — they’d think she was jacking them because they’re rich, because clearly she doesn’t charge everyone that much. But when she shows up in an X5, it suggests that she’s one of them — the best catering to the best.
Now of course, this technique didn’t work on you, because you know it’s manipulative BS. And it probably wouldn’t work on other rich people who are really looking for a bargain. But the truth is that those bargain hunters are not her customer base, because with $9,000 custom window treatments she’s selling a luxury good. Her customer base is that large percentage of wealthy people who just want to feel like they’re getting the best, and are willing to pay a premium for that privilege.
I live in Los Angeles, and I always drive my “show car” to appointments with new clients because it suggests they’re getting someone super-successful for the money I’m asking for. Whether you’re a realtor, an accountant, or a math tutor, most wealthy people will be more likely to accept high fees if you show up looking like you’re super successful (and in LA at least, a nice car subliminally says that — even though logically it shouldn’t!). There will obviously be some that are looking for a bargain rather than for the best, but if your goal is to make big profits and retire early then those aren’t the clients you’re looking for. So, if you deal in luxury goods or services, drive that show car to meet clients!
Maybe in L.A. people share your mindset but L.A. is not like most of the world. Take a look at the cars listed on the chart above. Then think about all the luxury cars on the highways in L.A. Do you think most of those luxury cars belong to people making over 500k? Its much better to have money and spend below your means than to take the fake it til you make it approach.
Mmmm, depends what your job is and where you live. If you live in LA or San Francisco and are a realtor, for example, it is probably better to fake it ’til you make it. A lot of rich people simply will not want to list their house with a guy driving a used Hyundai, because it doesn’t project to them that he’s been successful selling million-dollar homes. Obviously, if the expensive car doesn’t help you with a lucrative job then it’s not a good move financially, no one competent would argue that. But if driving the car contributes to your sales success — as I imagine it likely does for Sam’s window-treatment lady — then by all means drive the car.
Ha- its like you read my mind with this post. My wife and I are coming to this realization after recently acquiring a RRS similar to the beast master (love that name). We love enjoying the car for ourselves, but feel self conscious around others. There are plenty of Range Rovers around where I live (and at my sons school) so hadn’t anticipated that feeling. And I’ve had BMWs in the past, so was used to having “nice” cars. I’d think that in SF they’d be even more common (along with plenty of 80k+ Model S Teslas).
We’re also a 1 car family and, fortunately, I don’t need to drive to work. My wife suggested buying a beater car yesterday, but overall, I just don’t want the hassle of an extra car even if it’s a super cheap used Toyota.
Who knows- this might lead to my next car being very under the radar. Kinda ironic that most people assume you buy a car like this to show off when in fact that’s the last thing we want. Non “car people” can’t believe anyone would want a luxury car for its merits and not as a status symbol. My dream car is a 991 911S, but I imagine i’d feel even more self conscious in that.
I love the 1/10th rule, but I actually have the opposite problem. My ’05 Corolla sticks out like a sore thumb at my office’s parking lot because all my colleagues in the auto industry are really into their cars and have pretty unique stuff. They think I’m pretty weird for driving something so boring.
Everywhere else, though… a dough car is where it is at. Especially after kids. We mostly walk everywhere where we live so I’m comfortable with the Corolla’s safety, but on the few occasions it is a big stress relief to know such an insignificant portion of your net worth just got vegetable puree smeared all over the door handles and goldfish crackers ground into the seats.
I worked for an Auto group and everyone in our office received a car allowance of about $400 a month. I never used that money for a car, I just invested the money. Most others had new cars every two years. My wife is a partner in an accounting firm and drove a 14 year old Lexus. After seeing her collegues lose everything after Enron and they were so leveraged that many probably never recovered, we were never going to have that much in stuff.
I took the middle of the road with a lightly used BMW 3 series. Every car in my suburb is a BMW or Mercedes, so it doesn’t stand out. It’s low key enough to drive through rougher neighborhoods, but nice enough to not be embarrassed in the Hamptons.
I don’t care about the status–I just love how it drives!
Good call on looking at your surroundings and then matching. BMW 3 series is also a dime a dozen here in SF. Getting a used one is a nice good balance of pleasure/practicality.
This post made me chuckle because I do have a show car and a dough car. For the past couple years my show car has been my daily driver, and in some instances (such as checking out investment properties) I did not want people to know that I had such a nice car – Tesla Model S. I bought it when I was 26 and had wanted one since I was maybe 20 or 21. It does serve a business purpose too, as it has my company branding on it and I take it to car shows for networking.
This past summer I bought a 2012 Toyota Camry. Only 35k miles on it. That thing should last me a while!
I am pretty recently single again and as a successful business owner under 30, I did not want to show up on dates with a Tesla. It helps me weed out people a lot quicker.
At the end of the day, as much as I hate it, people judge you on the type of car you drive. Especially in my line of work. So I’m just playing the game. It’s kind of fun to decide which car I want to drive every morning, and I’m super fortunate to be in that position. I also have the Camry listed on Turo to hopefully let it make me some extra money :)
Oh yeah! I remember you buying a Tesla S several years ago! At least it’s a nice business expense.
Your Toyota Camry 2012 is the perfect Dough Car!
I have a 2007 acura tsx with over 220,000 miles. Im an artist and need something bigger to haul canvas and panels in. What type of vehicle would you recommend? Im looking for an SUV or van that I could treat as a dough car, something dependable and easy on gas. Also reliable, easy and cheap to fix and will increase in value or won’t depreciate in value? Should I keep my car and have the bigger Suv? Curious to know your thoughts. Thanks in advance
I’d go for one of these models that’s 5-7 years old:
Toyota Highlander
Toyota Rav4
Honda CRV
Honda Pilot
They should cost less than $10-$15K. Reliable, unassuming, functional.
I love to paint btw. Did around 15 hours of painting last week while listening to some podcasts. Feels like my mind heals during this time.
Hey Sam, you described our dough car perfectly!! We have a rusty and beat up diesel F350 from the early 90’s that used to be a farm truck, ripped upholstery and all. It even landed in a ditch at one point and has a massive dent on one door that looks as though the Hulk punched it! But hey it was cheap, tows like a champ and it’s perfect to transport our dogs.
Our show car used to be a 2011 convertible Camaro with racing stripes but we just sold it and got a used Subaru Ascent (SUV). It isn’t fast or sporty, but it’s quieter, gets better gas mileage and less envious looks even it’s much newer (came out in 2018). We’re planning to keep it at least 10 years so depreciation will eventually catch up and get us to the 1/10th rule. At least that’s the plan! ^_^
Sounds like a great plan!
The preschool asked what type of car you drive? That’s crazy. Only in California.
We only have one car, a 2010 Mazda 5. I love it. It’s 100% stealthy and I don’t care (much) when it gets dinged. I hope it lasts until our son goes off to college. Then we’ll get a nice convertible.
Your guideline is very restrictive. Someone making $250,000/year should be able to buy a nicer car than a Honda. :)
Well, it was on the financial aid application. They don’t want people trying to game the system. Although, purposefully buying a Dough Car may be considered gaming the system too.
A $25,000 Honda Accord is SWEET! What you talking about? It was one of my dream cars as a middle school kid. But my dad ended up getting a 1976 Nissan Datsun with no paint and only three hubcaps instead. This was in 1990.
I bought my show truck for half the dealer cost because it was in an accident and rebuilt. And my dough car is almost 16 years old and I plan to drive it to the ground. :-)
Doughshow cars.
It is incredible how cool of a vehicle you can get for under 6 grand.
We always drive pre-smog American classics. You can register them as antiques and never pay registration again.
Parts for these oldies are very cheap and you can do everything yourself with essentially a 9/16 wrench lol.
They only catch the good kind of attention.
The best part is they do not depreciate- you can buy a ‘69 Ford pickup for 5 grand, drive it for 5 years, sell it and get all your money back.
Im looking for an SUV or van that I could treat in the same we you are with your 69 Ford truck. Considering there probably are not any antiques of SUVs or vans, are there any older ones that are reliable, easy and cheap to fix and will increase in value or won’t depreciate in value?
There are many cool old American suv type vehicles that could suite your needs.
Search “panel truck” on Craigslist.
Vans are really cool and fun but they are more tedious to work on because of the engine location.
Dodge b100, Chevy g10, Ford econoline, Chevy Apache. Just do some searching and see what you find. 80s Toyota 4runners are really cool too and they are collectible now.
Just look for something clean, well maintained, with ideally a senior owner.
Curious about the anecdote about the cocky employee getting the small(er) bonus.
Can you estimate the how much each factor played in the bonus decision?
1. pretty cocky guy who didn’t follow instructions. we discovered how truly immature he was.
2. he drove too nice a car
Sure sounds like y’all thought he was an under-performing employee who wasn’t liked and his work wasn’t respected and him owning an expensive car wasn’t the actual reason he got a lower bonus. Makes a good story, though. Was it truly causal?
Counterpoint to the judge a book by its’ cover mindset. My brother, a high-earning doctor living, once asked me about my choice of car. I am a tech consultant and show up to people’s homes and business and he thought I would lose business because I was driving an older, unimpressive vehicle (it was a Honda Civic ~13 years old). I didn’t agree with his point of view that clients saw someone in a beater and wondered if they were good at their job / business. I drove that car for another 5+ years until another driver crashed into me.
Good question. Bonuses are subjective. They are discretionary too. The car was part of his cocky demeanor, a big part of it. Once you have a bad reputation, it’s really hard to get it back.
But if he suddenly came in and told us he sold the car, gave the money back to his parents, donated some of the money to a foster home, and started taking the bus to work like many of us, I think he would have got the standard $25K bonus for first-year analysts at the time.
At work, you need to be liked to get ahead. It’s that simple.
People are superficial by nature. We use our basic 5 senses to take in external stimuli and the result is our action and behavior.
The 5 basic senses we shared with the animals, therefore, it is meant for survival as animals.
We have been blessed with the frontal cortex serves as the manager of the 5 senses. Ninety-nine percents of the population do not use it properly.
That is why the young banker you hired drove his fancy car to work to just get the envious feeling from others, and did not realize that his showboat will cost him in raise and promotion from his boss – as his boss, you already gave him a merit evaluation long before the due date.
I DISAGREED with you about the blind lady situation. She will be successful with the showboat package because most people will relate the fancy car and shade to the quality of the products she is selling – it did not work for you because your frontal cortex is doing its job.
A simple and effective exercise for your frontal cortex is asking the following question – WHY DO I DO WHAT I DO? Before any the execution on any decision!
My wife drives a basic Toyota SUV and I switched to the show car about 4 months ago. We were doing really well laying low until the new car showed up and people began looking at us a little differently. Within the first week of bringing the new car home, two neighbors asked, “what is it you do again?”
It’s funny how quickly people seem interested in what you do when in reality they’re just curious as to how you can afford things…
So I have spent the last few weeks looking for a small, old pickup truck so I can at least I can fly under the radar when I am out of the neighborhood.
But is it perhaps too late? Since your neighbors all know you had a Show Car? What car was it?
I guess you can make up a story and say you fell on hard times or something.
Your son was actually checking out a $1M McLaren P1! At the very high end, cars will appreciate better than most equities. The car is now worth about $2M.
Dang, I had P1 in my head as this was a picture from earlier in the year. But I was guessing it was the cheaper model. How can you tell it’s a P1 so easily? It doesn’t look like the GTR b/c it doesn’t have the massive spoiler in the back.
The guy has a Aventador and Rollys Royce Wraith as well. I wonder what he does. Hmmm.
I was going to comment as well. You can tell it’s a P1 easily b/c of the front hood (unique to P1), the HUGE air intakes in the front, the doors, and the big rear wing. This car is in a whole other league that McLaren’s “regular” cars. :)
Great point about about judging someone who works in the service industry showing up in a flashy car. I remember one landscaper who showed up in tricked out H2 hummer. Foolishly I went with him and got gouged with the pricing. Later chose a much more down to earth landscaper who drove a regular pickup truck.
I live out in the boonies so ride sharing is not an option (have the Uber app which shows absolutely no cars around me for 30+ miles). I have 3 cars (daily driver which is my Tesla model S90D I bought new, a 2004 Mercedes C320 I bought new which is the driver I gave to my mom to use and help pick up my daughter from school, and an 06 Land Rover I bought used mainly to take trash to the dump and when I go the airport.
One experience I had was when we were shopping for a used car for my fiancee. We chose to go into the lot with her car which was old and damaged from a recent hit and run (reason for shopping) because I felt showing up in a tesla would set us up for trouble.
Thoughts on owning three cars instead of just two?
For me it was kind of a necessity. My mom can’t drive “anything big like the LR3” so she took my previous daily driver to become her own.
I don’t have garbage service so have to take our garbage to the local dump (just 2 miles away) and obviously would not subject my Tesla to that and the C320 is incredibly small for that (if I didn’t want to put the garbage in the interior of the car and just leave it in the trunk (which of course I wouldn’t want since daughter and my mom use that primarily).
I could have gotten a cheaper option like a pickup, but felt SUV would be better for my lifestyle (my fiancee previously stated, “I don’t see you as a pickup kind of guy, whatever that implies. lol)
If you’re not insecure (most minorities Are) you wouldn’t need a “show” car.
Golfing: never done it, despite living next to a golf course for half a century.
Because I don’t need to.
Edit: I’m an old, lonely, white guy with racist tendencies.
This made me LOL..I’m a middle aged Ivy League educated black woman, who went to a left-leaning hippy school, but who hates political correctness. Your post is awesome, and very funny. Of course all of my family and acquaintances drive luxury cars and always have. You are like the Howard Stern of this thread, thanks for the laugh.