Can I afford a Raptor?

Hi everybody.

I've never had a job that paid well until last week. I got hired at an oil company and will now make 120k a year.

The roads to are bad and i drive a 7hr commute to the camps. I stay for 10 days then drive 7hrs home and relax for 4 days.

I just want to know if my annual salary allows me to now own and drive a raptor even with all the bad gas mileage. I'm very new to money so am I totally worrying for no reason?

How much will a raptor cost me every year Total (finance, insurance and gas)?

With your salary if you do not have 12 kids and 6 other car payments you should be fine!

Congrats on your job I have been in the industry for the last 12 years

how can you afford not to drive a raptor. jack.

Boo_gee said:

Hi everybody.

I've never had a job that paid well until last week. I got hired at an oil company and will now make 120k a year.

The roads to are bad and i drive a 7hr commute to the camps. I stay for 10 days then drive 7hrs home and relax for 4 days.

I just want to know if my annual salary allows me to now own and drive a raptor even with all the bad gas mileage. I'm very new to money so am I totally worrying for no reason?

How much will a raptor cost me every year Total (finance, insurance and gas)?

Click to expand...

Not trying to split hairs but what you can 'pay for' and what you can 'afford' aren't the same.

If you want to see how much of your income is available for transportation, you need to do the math. Figure out how much you will lose to taxes first. Then subtract 10-15% for retirement (I'd say more but you are young and wouldn't listen anyway), next subtract your monthly expenses - everything - cell, rent/mortgage, insurance, food, etc... Whatever you have left is what you can 'afford'.

Roughly speaking, you would be spending more than half of your yearly take home pay on a truck. You might consider a used one that is still under warranty.

Not trying to tell you how to live, just helping answer the question you asked.

WarSurfer said:

Not trying to split hairs but what you can 'pay for' and what you can 'afford' aren't the same.

If you want to see how much of your income is available for transportation, you need to do the math. Figure out how much you will lose to taxes first. Then subtract 10-15% for retirement (I'd say more but you are young and wouldn't listen anyway), next subtract your monthly expenses - everything - cell, rent/mortgage, insurance, food, etc... Whatever you have left is what you can 'afford'.

Roughly speaking, you would be spending more than half of your yearly take home pay on a truck. You might consider a used one that is still under warranty.

Not trying to tell you how to live, just helping answer the question you asked.

Click to expand...

Raptor advice and life skills at the same time! Everything I need to know, I learned on Raptor forums.

The Raptor is the cheep part. Its all the extras that will put you in the poor house! LOL >> See vendor list to right ! best of luck.

If you just got a new job, and still have a functioning car I say wait a bit. I know every time something changes (eg; get a new job) financially, it takes a few months for everything to settle down and me to see exactly what things are really going to look like.

I also say go for a slightly used Raptor if you have to have one, it'll save you a good bit of cash, I saved about $10k on mine vs all the other trucks in the area when I bought it since I went used.

Lance Vincent said:

The Raptor is the cheap part. Its all the extras that will put you in the poor house! LOL >> See vendor list to right ! best of luck.

Click to expand...

I'm in complete agreement.
If you feel confident that your $120K will have a reasonable amount of longevity (enough to pay off the Raptor), I would say go for it.

But hopefully, you'll still have a second vehicle for some of your 7 hour drives.

aarons419 said:

If you just got a new job, and still have a functioning car I say wait a bit. I know every time something changes (eg; get a new job) financially, it takes a few months for everything to settle down and me to see exactly what things are really going to look like.

Click to expand...

+1

Track your expenses & make at least a rough budget for a few months. In the meantime, put the payment amount in the bank. In a couple months, you'll have that much more for a downpayment (ie- that much less to finance). Keep in mind that all the negotiating and fantastic sales price can be easily destroyed by paying interest on finance charges.

While you're allowing the dust to settle, establish or bolster an emergency fund (3-6 months living expenses). When something bad happens, you won't have to go in debt to fix it. Or if you lost your job, etc, you'd have some buffer time before things got real bad.

I think there are way too many factors for the forum to answer this for you. Are you self employed, or a W2 employee?, what is your credit like?, where do you live?, what are you housing arrangements? How far is your commute?

If this didn't sound fishy to me(no offense if you're serious), I would offer to send you a simple budget spreadsheet.

Instead, we'll go with a picture. I made a heck of alot of assumptions, including state and local tax rates, W2 (although I did leave in healthcare), that you get a decent interest rate on a loan, Debt, that you would still be saving money, and the utility averages are from a townhouse in PA(didn't feel like changing them.)

Anyway, make something similar to this, be sure to include ALL expenses. If you play poker every other week, that is an expense, smoking, going out to eat, etc..