[blackasta]

Originally Posted by Hayek

I'd be shocked if people earning just Rs. 150,000 per month take home were buying BMWs. Even a basic X1 is Rs. 27 l+ OTR most places in India. Spending 1.5 years salary on a car which also requires maintenance, fuel et al, and is unlikely to last more than 6-7 years is something that strikes me as being "brave" (and I am putting it very politely).

The usual benchmark is that people are reluctant to spend more than 6 months salary on cars - so a recurring take home of Rs. 54 lakhs pa or a pre tax of Rs. 80 lakhs pa is the bare minimum to consider a BMW in my view. And that is if one has a high degree of confidence in future earnings and earnings growth, which is tough in today's environment. (or perhaps I am being influenced too much by the woes of the financial services space)

IMO as a thumb rule - 1 year salary = price of a car seems ok. Anything more is risky.
But then again - it depends on various factors such as previous loans, how many dependents one has, and general lifestyle.

[black12rr]

Originally Posted by blackasta

IMO as a thumb rule - 1 year salary = price of a car seems ok. Anything more is risky.
But then again - it depends on various factors such as previous loans, how many dependents one has, and general lifestyle.

I was thinking the same .

Assume that your CTC is 30 lakhs . You save every single rupees ( i mean every single rupee ) . Try hard ,go empty stomach , dont get anything , dont buy anything , live like a monk /beggar ...whatever , at the end of year you buy the Dream car of yours .Its like the reward for your penance .
Ignore what others think ,crazy ,spend thrift ,fool ...but you will leave rest of your life in peace . Question is can this be done ?. Anybody done already ?

[Technocrat]

Originally Posted by rishi_kapoor

Yesss...very much

I am a regular IT guy, just took few years to buy one. To be precise 17 years. And now, next dream is Aston Martin Vanquish. Nothing is too big, keep dreaming.

We are are discussing regular IT folks & not Big Shots like you

Originally Posted by abhi182

Second that!!
Regular salaried Joe, 8 yrs of work-ex.
Just bit the bullet on a X1 s20d

Good to know, I hope you are regular IT Joe as per the OPs post & not like Rishi. And in which you give hope to lot of IT Joe's

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by blackasta

IMO as a thumb rule - 1 year salary = price of a car seems ok. Anything more is risky.
But then again - it depends on various factors such as previous loans, how many dependents one has, and general lifestyle.

One year's salary may be ok for a 21 year old with rich, relatively young parents, and no intention of "settling down" for 5+ years. But I doubt such young kids get even Rs. 30 l post tax in IT, at least in India. But it would be highly unadvisable for someone who intends to support a family to spend 1 years family income on a car.

[rishi_kapoor]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

We are are discussing regular IT folks & not Big Shots like you

Good to know, I hope you are regular IT Joe as per the OPs post & not like Rishi. And in which you give hope to lot of IT Joe's

Nope, don't agree with you...I am very much a regular IT Joe

The key is to wait for right time in life and take a reasonable risk. You have to know (and understand) what you want more, BMW or pension fund or a new house or fund for kids' education? There is no free lunch in this world, you have to win some and loose some.

[blackasta]

Originally Posted by Hayek

One year's salary may be ok for a 21 year old with rich, relatively young parents, and no intention of "settling down" for 5+ years. But I doubt such young kids get even Rs. 30 l post tax in IT, at least in India. But it would be highly unadvisable for someone who intends to support a family to spend 1 years family income on a car.

Lolz - I do not think a fresh out of college IT guy would buy a car just like that. After 4 years and maybe saving 25% of each year's salary, one can think of buying a entry level hatchback - this is the sensible route. Or one can take a loan, do some investment with the savings to get atleast a portion of the loan covered, and buy the car.

The 21 year old driving around in bimmers need no job, especially stressful ones like IT where you get male pattern baldness and grey hair before 30 - they are blessed with a rich papa!

[download2live]

The more I read responses on this thread more poor I feel.
No matter how people try to prove it, unless you are a Politician, Builder or a Company owner, forget the BMW.
If the bitter pill is hard to digest then go about playing with words. But words are well just...words.
You cannot move trains with them. Unless you are Balakrishna. Must stop. Going OT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w4Ur...eature=related

[F150]

Originally Posted by blackasta

IMO as a thumb rule - 1 year salary = price of a car seems ok. Anything more is risky.
But then again - it depends on various factors such as previous loans, how many dependents one has, and general lifestyle.

Agree. I too believe 1 yr salary is the threshold.

Originally Posted by rishi_kapoor

Nope, don't agree with you...I am very much a regular IT Joe

The key is to wait for right time in life and take a reasonable risk. You have to know (and understand) what you want more, BMW or pension fund or a new house or fund for kids' education? There is no free lunch in this world, you have to win some and loose some.

Sir, with all due respect,your signature indicates a pretty awesome collection for a regular IT guy to own. We can only think of owning one car at a time, may be an XUV and ALTO/NANO/i10 AT
Cedia Sports 2.0 (115)
Outlander 2.4 MIVEC (170), BMW 320d Exclusive Edition (183) WOW!...I own 568 horses!

The industry benchmark or perception if that is the more appropriate word is that. CTC = 1.5/2 x No of years of experience.

So, for a person with 8 yrs experience in IT the range is about 12 - 16 Lacs per annum. A base X1 costs 24 Lacs OTR which is 1.5 times the highest figure i.e 16 Lacs. This is a very calculated risk because by the time one hits 8 yrs he/she will get married and witha piggy back of a home loan and setting up a new home - furniture, home appliances etc.

So as per my belief, any one above 16L for a 8 yrs exp can not be termed as regular IT guy.

Originally Posted by blackasta

Lolz - I do not think a fresh out of college IT guy would buy a car just like that. After 4 years and maybe saving 25% of each year's salary, one can think of buying a entry level hatchback - this is the sensible route. Or one can take a loan, do some investment with the savings to get atleast a portion of the loan covered, and buy the car.

The 21 year old driving around in bimmers need no job, especially stressful ones like IT where you get male pattern baldness and grey hair before 30 - they are blessed with a rich papa!

Cant agree more.

[niks_devil666]

Will this help ?

http://www.zigwheels.com/news-featur...leasing/14146/

[rishi_kapoor]

Originally Posted by F150

Agree. I too believe 1 yr salary is the threshold.

Sir, with all due respect,your signature indicates a pretty awesome collection for a regular IT guy to own. We can only think of owning one car at a time, may be an XUV and ALTO/NANO/i10 AT
Cedia Sports 2.0 (115)
Outlander 2.4 MIVEC (170), BMW 320d Exclusive Edition (183) WOW!...I own 568 horses!

The industry benchmark or perception if that is the more appropriate word is that. CTC = 1.5/2 x No of years of experience.

So, for a person with 8 yrs experience in IT the range is about 12 - 16 Lacs per annum. A base X1 costs 24 Lacs OTR which is 1.5 times the highest figure i.e 16 Lacs. This is a very calculated risk because by the time one hits 8 yrs he/she will get married and witha piggy back of a home loan and setting up a new home - furniture, home appliances etc.

So as per my belief, any one above 16L for a 8 yrs exp can not be termed as regular IT guy.

Cant agree more.

Sir, I still don't agree, this need to get settled at next Noida meet over drinks

Look, what I mean is your commitment to your passion. I obviously owned a grandfather funded M800 at 21. My first self bought car was a Palio 1.2 but I had to stretch my budget, cut down on some other stuff to own one. It is obvious there was no way I could have owned a bimmer then.

But did that stopped me from aspiring for one? No, I always aspired for it and bought it when I could afford one but still it was a stretch, cutting down on something else to fulfil my ambition. I have colleagues who chose to rather invest in penthouses because that's what they aspire for. I have BMW and they have penthouses

Timing is very important, you can't own anything in a day, everything needs planning, dreaming! Passion and loads of luck. But if you don't aspire calling a dream too big then obviously you will never achieve it. Dream big, work hard and believe nothing is impossible. And trust me every hurdle will crumble down and make way for your dream to achieve.

And yes, a regular IT joe "can" own a BMW, it's just a matter of time!

[Puneet.S]

Originally Posted by rishi_kapoor

Nope, don't agree with you...I am very much a regular IT Joe

You, Sir, are being humble; your profession description says - "IT Leader for a fortune 50 org".

Its almost akin to Bill Gates saying that he's a regular IT joe.

Sorry for being

Timing is very important, you can't own anything in a day, everything needs planning, dreaming! Passion and loads of luck. But if you don't aspire calling a dream too big then obviously you will never achieve it. Dream big, work hard and believe nothing is impossible. And trust me every hurdle will crumble down and make way for your dream to achieve.

Well said, couldn't agree more!

[rishi_kapoor]

Originally Posted by Puneet.S

You, Sir, are being humble; your profession description says - "IT Leader for a fortune 50 org".

Its almost akin to Bill Gates saying that he's a regular IT joe.

Sorry for being

No offence taken Puneet. I am nowhere even near Bill or Steve

But I maintain that I am a regular guy aspiring to be someone someday

OT: we need a Noida meet to settle this.

[supremeBaleno]

Audi seems to be making it easy for the IT folks (and others) to own an A4. Saw an advt. couple days ago in the newspaper about a scheme where you pay 5lakhs downpayment and the rest in monthly installments of 50K. They also added "No other charges" or some such wording in the advt. Ofcourse 50K p.m. for how many years was not mentioned, though it is anyone's guess.

Good to see many actual examples of IT folks who dreamt of it and achieved it. Not only supports the claim that this is something very much possible, but helps motivate those who have similar dreams. Ofcourse, just dreaming is not enough, there needs to be sweat and brains behind the dream.

[DCEite]

Feel pity for IT guys (myself included). We spend our childhood, our adolescence, our youth, our middle ages working so hard and then we start thinking that will I be ever able to afford that XYZ ever.

And then there are those lucky Real estate builders, brokers, farmers, politicians, who drive around in there White coloured scorpios, BMWs, Fortuners,Audis and for them life is so much easy. Those folks don't even need to think, they just approach the nearest dealer with hard cash, pay the Money, and take car homes. Just like we middle/upper middle class buy vegetables and fruits from market.

Being a farmer or a builder is so much fun !

:(

P.S. By farmers i mean those owing agricultural lands nearby metros.

[abhi182]

@F150- It's a new one

Good to know, I hope you are regular IT Joe as per the OPs post & not like Rishi. And in which you give hope to lot of IT Joe's

Happy to catch up over a Pune meet anytime
although what made be bite the bullet was a combination of multiple factors

- My savings are primarily long term equity bets , The recent volatility in the markets was making me shy away for the last several months so had some liquid acct balance in the money mkt

- Am single, so minimal liabilities

- Massive haggling leading to a good discount , and the fact that the landed cost post that was coming close to an equally specced BMW in a UK or Australia - Thus leading to a content frame of mind that I am not paying a massive India tax on the car