Quote:
Originally Posted by neoiey
There are many people who make +$70,000/year and drive cheap cars because they spend their money to buy houses, and there are people who make little money who drive luxury cars and live in apartments.
How people with no degree buy luxury cars? and have enough money to maintain their vehicles?
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From your writing style, I am going to assume that you are not a native English speaker. And I assume that you are from a country/culture where people have long been "ranked" according to their proficiency as grade-grubbers. There are certainly countries where the educated elites/party elites see it as their prerogative to exploit/subjugate those without degrees and party affiliations.
Well
this is America, where people
still can make money DOING THINGS, rather than by exploiting/enslaving/robbing others. That's why America is still so phenomenally wealthy and productive.
I know one couple, who married as FOURTEEN-year-olds (Texas), who ended up as magnamillionaires in Petroleum Exploration
(he's German, and smart, and can DO things with equipment). I know another couple, Swedish Jews from America's Southwest, who crawled out of the wreckage of their family's implosion
(dysfunction, inheritance taxes, enormous contributions to Israel & holocaust victims), left home as penniless seventeen-year-olds, and were millionaires by the time she got her community college 'art degree'.
He never completed high school. He started as a day laborer in construction. She worked odd jobs in Graphic Design, then started a little rag of a 'Dollar saver' type paper, then several little rags of magazines. On weekends, they remodeled their homes, which they flipped. The kids grew up working on Mom's publications after-school, then remodeling progressively larger houses, on weekends. The husband started a niche construction company. Then he became a builder/developer. His only education came from what he was able to read, before falling asleep at night, and reading while others were driving. Now, he is the 'Money Man' behind developments in the billion-Dollar range. The wife finally sold her little publishing empire for a good bit of change, and has gone on to something much bigger. One son
(A Doctor of Economics) does nothing but oversee the various instruments he has established, for managing/multiplying the wealth his parents have created. The parents are rather scatterbrained and extravagant. This son has to make sense of it all
(as he started doing around age ten), and divert the money toward investment. He has a library in each of the family's homes. Mostly, he flies to Beverly Hills or Cap Ferrat, locks himself in the library, and works twelve-hour days, every day he is not in-transit, calling, buying, selling, teleconferencing with his NYC
staff - in the offices which do nothing but manage the extended family's assets... THAT is how much money a person without a degree
CAN make. Oh... and I've seen what lurks in the garages of that family's homes. Great-Grandmothers' Fifties/Sixties limousines from
"before the implosion", restored at the direction of the asset-managing son; oldish Rolls Royces
bought USED, for peanuts, after Ford ate Volvo
(they, like most everybody who mattered, drove battered Volvos, as long as Swedes owned the company). New Maybach/Rolls, to be replaced regularly... And
nothing sporty.
Now, lets consider people who are NOT blond and brilliant and beautiful and motivated. How could
THEY drive luxury cars?
Actually, it can be
slightly cheaper to own a modest home, than to rent an apartment. Some of those homes are owned by couples, where both partners work. And maybe 'Mom'
(who has an income) lives in the "Mother-in-law Suite"
(they call such layouts "Mother-in-law Plans"). Three incomes, and a modestly-priced house, mean that you can do pretty well: particularly if there are no children.
So, let's take a theoretical look at such a household. 'Mama', who is widowed and has nothing but Social Security, has about $1,200.00 coming in, per month. 'Cody', the young husband, makes twelve Dollars an hour, working in an auto parts store. 'Brandi', Cody's wife, makes eight Dollars an hour, as low-ranking employee in a nursing home. The house was built in '65, and is in a modest neighborhood, in a town which has not been too badly ravaged by Diversity - yet. In other words, its a place where decent people can still afford a decent home. Maybe Mama owns the home, or maybe Cody & Brandi bought it, as 18-year-old newlyweds, with Brandi's Grammaw's life insurance money as a hefty down-payment. The mortgage note is about $1,000.
So, Mama brings in $1,200. Brandi brings in $1,280. Cody brings in $1,600. That's $4,080 a month. Yes, there are taxes, but Mama takes in ironing, Cody mows lawns on days-off, and Brandi babysits a couple of days a month. Their combined income is around fifty thousand Dollars a year, before their incidental labor is included. That's about the national average.
(we'll assume that the two thou Mama makes ironing, the four thou Cody makes mowing, and the two thou Brandi makes babysitting, pretty much take care of their low-bracket income tax bill). Mortgage is twelve thousand. Taxes on the house are two thousand. Maintenance is about two thousand. Insurance is two thousand.
Mama finds out that Miz Jenkins from church is going into the nursing home, and buys her pristine-always-garaged 2001
Lincoln Towncar,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqMyoGdBBMA, for FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS
2001 Lincoln Town Car Price Range - Used & New - Motor Trend Magazine Mama had been saving up her ironing money for a few years, and just pays
cash. Insurance isn't much, for a four thousand Dollar car.
Cody has broad shoulders and a major lump in his Levis, and Brandi, while no beauty, is passably-pretty. This makes them attractive to Bob & Lana, who are very discreet swingers. Bob is the Football Coach at the local college, and thus one of the richest men in town. He's really interested in Cody, who was a Football Standout in high school, and a major star in the showers. But the existence of Brandi and Lana make all of this OK. And since Cody and Brandi are nice, church-going non-smokers/non-drinkers/non-druggies, they really are worth cultivating. So, Bob gives Cody a really sweet deal, about what he would get in a trade-in, on his 2005
Land Rover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMKJuKgRRsU, which Cody, like his Mama, buys with SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS,
cash 2005 Land Rover LR3 Price Range - Used & New - Motor Trend Magazine, from his lawn-mowing money. The Land Rover looks pretty new, and has 110,000 miles. The
(expensive) wheel bearings will give out around 200,000 miles. But, since Cody lives near work, that will be at least five years into the future.
Lana is starting to
"think of Brandi as a little sister" - someone trustworthy to house-sit, while Lana jets off to Aspen, and Bob and Cody are
"out at the cabin, hunting and fishing". Lana is ready for something new, and so gives
"her little sister" a super-sweet-deal on her 2002
Jaguar XK coupe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eyLuLPwebM. Which she lets-go for a thousand or so below trade-value
2002 Jaguar XK-Series Price Range - Used & New - Motor Trend Magazine at SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS, with the tacit understanding that she'll be getting free house-sitting, and that Brandi will keep her lips zipped on the subject of Bob & Cody. You pay for discretion. Cody helps Brandi with the money to buy the
'Jag'.
Between the three of them, Mama, Cody, and Brandi, will drive about twenty five thousand miles per year. At a high thirty cents per mile, for maintenance and repairs, that's 7,500 per year. Insurance will be another three thousand. Ad tags, etc, and what... eleven thousand? Out of a discretionary income of twenty thousand? Mama is a thrifty cook, and so groceries
and household products are just four thousand a year. They don't do anything expensive. They don't have many clothes, and what few they have are cheap. They watch free TV, instead of cable. They don't eat out. I'm seeing them as still, with three new-looking luxury cars, having enough left over to put a couple of thousand Dollars into savings, every year.
Housing 20,000
Cars upkeep 8,000
Groceries 4,000
Clothes 2,000
That leaves around 16,000 for "other", depending on taxes (which are mostly displaced by the side-jobs), and medical, which is mostly covered by Medicare & work insurance.
And I wouldn't leave you without a happy ending, so:
Mama, in her flashy Lincoln, catches the eye of the
'young man-of-color' she used to secretly carry-on with, out in the woods, when they were teenagers. In his whole life, she's been the only one capable of handling what he's got to offer. And now, with interracial marriage being normal and all, they rekindle their relationship. Turns out, he's become a megachurch preacher with a diverse congregation, and pulls in hundreds of thousands a year. A white wife is the ticket to expanding the congregation into a stadium-sized edifice, her hair color is perfect for TV. They marry, and live happily ever after. Mama gets furs and Bentleys, from now on.
Brandi pulls up to the nursing home in that black Jag, and the supervisors figure she's well-connected. Suddenly, she looks like a winner, and so she's promoted to 'supervisor'
(with the understanding she'll enroll at the local Junior College, and get some certification of some sort).
Cody's been working-out with Coach in the college's Fitness Complex. With a bubble-butt AND those yard-wide shoulders - and with that fab Land Rover, he's looking good to his bosses. Coach Bob has been giving Cody the clothing he's outgrown
(Oxxford blazers, Luciano Barbera Sport http://www.lucianobarbera.it/dnn/home ... really high-end stuff, as well as buying new items for 'his manly protege' at the best places: http://circle7online.com/ ) Coaches tend to take in big money for fixing games, and so there's plenty to buy nice things good buddies. Cody's bosses at the auto-parts store know a winner when they see one, degree or no degree, and make Cody the REGIONAL sales-whatever. His salary triples.
And, since this is still
(for the time being) America, things like this really do happen, all the time, for ordinary people who work hard and know how to behave themselves.
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