Income vs. M3.

[MRV99]

Unless you have an S corp which to eliminate paying double tax, you move any income to an owner/owners which ends up being earned income. Not just an LLC

[gallian93]

Personally, i think the point of "making it" is to work less ... for more

Originally Posted by Yugo

One thing I wonder about is how so many people that make so much money on here have so much free time to spend on car forums?

[bradleyland]

Fucking hell, this isn't an IRS audit. I just used my "income" not my IRS tax form line item for income.

[j2m]

Originally Posted by Team Plutonium

I'll be talking to my campaign manger and see if I should post my tax returns here.... I'm just not sure if it is a good idea. In any case, I think the last page proved my point that these threads are retarded.

Don't forget your birth certificate

[dtmwerksm3]

Originally Posted by Giggs

Self employed

Yep, self employed web designer/developer here

[Yugo]

At least threads like this seem to be entertaining and popular judging by the amount of people still posting

[bradleyland]

Originally Posted by Team Plutonium

I'll be talking to my campaign manger and see if I should post my tax returns here.... I'm just not sure if it is a good idea. In any case, I think the last page proved my point that these threads are retarded.

Just makes it easier to determine who *not* to take advice from, haha.

No offense, Yugo, but you gotta admit, bringing tax classification of income in to this discussion is kind of silly. We're not trying to avoid taxes here, we're just talking casually.

[Kuwen]

I really appreciate those trying to make genuine contributions to the thread... Though I also enjoy the sarcasm as well.

[Yugo]

Originally Posted by bradleyland

No offense, Yugo, but you gotta admit, bringing tax classification of income in to this discussion is kind of silly. We're not trying to avoid taxes here, we're just talking casually.

None taken,...no shame in trying to avoid tax, just don't evade it

[Majdnoon]

I'd vote but my E36 cost me less than my tuition for one quarter... so I'd probably skew the results

[Reznick]

I take an annual salary from my family's business of 1 shiny silver dollar per year for all my hard work.Come to think of it...screw them..I quit

[LemonOne]

Jeremy Clarkson once said:
"M3 drivers have no friends"
Point proven.

[LarThaL]

Originally Posted by Yugo

At least threads like this seem to be entertaining and popular judging by the amount of people still posting

Not much left to really discuss about the car that hasn't been beaten to death already. Go check out the M5 board, and it's all business, as it will be when the F80 M3 goes on sale.

[carbon//m3]

This thread makes me lol

[2012awe92m3]

Originally Posted by MRV99

Unless you have an S corp which to eliminate paying double tax, you move any income to an owner/owners which ends up being earned income. Not just an LLC

Why not have an LLC in an IRA?.. Talk about tax sheltering... this is all the rage now.. too bad the IRS is hot on the trail and will have legislation passed on this soon. :-/

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by Giggs

Be your own financial planner. Spend some free time studying investment strategies and pick a type of investment you are interested in, i.e. stocks, real estate, etc. Become an expert at it in your free time, and then pursue it full speed ahead on the side. You don't need to have a 4 year college education in a specific investment field to get good at it. It sounds like a huge task but think about how much time you spend wasting time, and how if a fraction of that wasted time could be spent learning about investing in a specific field you could make enough to one day quit your job and be financially independent. And if you apply this learning over a long period of time a little at a time, then eventually you will start investing and making money and feel confident about your knowledge and future investments. Don't feel like you need to make it happen overnight either, and frankly that's why most people give up. It takes time to get good at something and it takes time to build wealth.

Originally Posted by Team Plutonium

No kidding.

That approach can result in loosing a shit load of money... very quickly. Handle that advice with caution.

i can definitely agree with what giggs is saying. i definitely don't come from money, and i didn't have anyone to give me good [real] financial advice, but i started doing my own research on investing and met a few people i look up to as mentors and started doing a lot better for myself. i can definitely see progress in the success i'm looking to achieve since i began educating myself, applying myself, and most importantly; investing and believing in myself. not now, and not tomorrow, but someday i'll have self sustaining income.
giggs hit the nail on the head.

[jeremyr4]

I can't help but add my 2 cents to all of this, seeing as I'm a full-time passive cash flow investor so I spend all of my time focusing on investing and cash flow. So here goes my 2 cents:

- Best suggestion I have read in this thread so far: Read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I will add: Read Cash Flow Quadrant as well (it's the second book in the series after Rich Dad Poor Dad). Not only will you understand that owning a primary residence is a liability - NOT an asset - but it could change your life. Rental properties and anything that generates cash flow are assets. And cash flow is what leads to financial freedom and what pays for your M3 car payments. Looking at it another way, if you own enough cash flowing properties, for example, then tenants will essentially pay for your M3 Trust me if you haven't read it it's a MUST... And I have nothing to sell here - I am just passionate about cash flow because it got me out of the corporate world and absolutely changed my life.
- Someone mentioned that they thought people in the $200k+ category would buy a more expensive car. You would be shocked at the number of people I know who buy $30k cars that are easily in the $200k category. That's how they got to that level of income and that's how they stay there! I'll refer you back to Rich Dad Poor Dad to understand that better if it doesn't make sense...
- Someone mentioned that they thought people in the $200k+ category would buy a more expensive car. Let's take a 991 C2S Cab vs E93 M3 for example. The 991 is $50k more than the M3. I can easily make 10%+ cash flow on that $50k so there was no way I would want to swallow the difference considering that both cars perform similarly. You might ask why the $5k I could earn per year (10% of $50k) would make a difference if I could afford both cars. I won't even get into the compounding effect of being able to invest that extra $5k for 30+ years at 10%. It literally adds up to an extra $750k-$1.25M in Net Worth over that 30+ years (that's my best guess without doing any real math right now). I'm not sure what book to suggest to understand that better but it's a very, very important point to understand.
- If you're reading this thread and you think that the $200k+ category is overinflated with fake votes, you might be right but I would argue that it looks right to me, as I would have a hard time justifying buying an $80k car if I was making $100k/yr... Who knows, maybe I'm just too conservative. Or maybe it's my cash flow focus. But either way I do know the key to life is LOW OVERHEAD - at least as compared to your income/cash flow
- It's interesting that there are no commonly discussed "benchmarks" for the amount someone is supposed to spend on a car vs their disposable income. It's pretty well known that 28% is the historical max number that is commonly used (if you ignore some of the bubblish numbers that were used in the 2000s). But it would be great to know what that number should be. Has anyone ever read any data about this?

That's all for now. While this thread is clearly a mixed bag of posts, it was good to read the various opinions on this so thanks for posting this poll!

[Yugo]

Agree with most what jeremyr4 said above, except for the primary residence being seen as a liability as heaviliy emphasized by the author of the "rich dad, poor dad book". It's definietly an asset although not an income producing asset as a rental property. It does suck up a lot of your money (given you have a mortgage on it), but at the end of the day once that mortgage is paid off you are left with what...an asset.

Of course a rental property brings in more value to the table, for those that can afford them, but for rest of us that can't, owning a house is an asset and considering it in your net worth makes sense.

As far as the people that make well into 200k and don't drive expensive cars, well I was always wondering about this when I was back in college, my CFO can buy 20 M3's from his annual earnings and the dude drives a camry...not everyone cares about cars like we do.

Also sometimes I look at baby boomers and wonder if I will ever be able to see such prosperity in my life time as they have. Most of them have lived through times when the american dream was a possibility, but for my generation (I am 32) that seems to be only a dream. I hope I am wrong, but I don't think we will ever see a booming economy and astronimical rise in equities as seen over the last 50-60 years.

Interesting article I read recently was about a book written based on advice given from elderly people in nursing homes and when they look back at their life and wishing they have done more with their life then they did. It was inspirational to see that at the end of the day not one of them cared about how much money they saved etc, but about the missed opportunies, like not going on a vacation or buying something they wanted really bad (hint M3 ).

I guess the secret to sucess to satisfy both your wants and your financial well being is some sort of balance, don't go over board on either one and you will be fine at the end of the day...not like the baby boomers, but you want starve

[kscarrol]

Originally Posted by Yugo

Also sometimes I look at baby boomers and wonder if I will ever be able to see such prosperity in my life time as they have. Most of them have lived through times when the american dream was a possibility, but for my generation (I am 32) that seems to be only a dream. I hope I am wrong, but I don't think we will ever see a booming economy and astronimical rise in equities as seen over the last 50-60 years.

You weren't born yet and I was just 10+ years old but much of the same down in the dumps view of our future occurred back in the 1970's. The economy was terrible, owning equities was a losing proposition, inflation was rampant, America had lost its edge and Japan was taking over the world. Most of this is being echoed today, America has lost its edge, the economy sucks and will never come back and China is taking over the world...

Just for reference, the Dow peaked at 985 in late 1968 and was around 830-840 at the end of 1979. Pull up a chart (http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/hi...a19601980.html). From that high of 985 the dow fell to 631 in mid-1970 and was extremely volatile throughout the remainder of the 70's...

I agree things are not great right now but they will come around. It would help if the clowns in DC would get their act together and make the hard decisions that need to be made and not simply do what they think will get them re-elected. The economy is slowly improving. Frankly we are in much better shape than many other countries but we still need to make some changes...

[nmehta211]

Originally Posted by Team Plutonium

I have to say, sometimes threads get better with age... this thread has gotten a lot more interesting.

I personally can't really give financial advice since it is not my field of expertise , and I don't care much of dealing with the hassles of rental properties, etc... but kudos to the folks who have fun doing that. I have a great financial adviser who is taking care of everything for me, and I can't complain, but I'm also very conservative in terms of investing.

That's really great--care to share who your financial adviser is? I am in NY as well.

I have already let go of 2 of them--they just seemed to be pushing more of their products and the rate of return they provided barely even matched the S&P!

[bradleyland]

Originally Posted by Yugo

Agree with most what jeremyr4 said above, except for the primary residence being seen as a liability as heaviliy emphasized by the author of the "rich dad, poor dad book". It's definietly an asset although not an income producing asset as a rental property. It does suck up a lot of your money (given you have a mortgage on it), but at the end of the day once that mortgage is paid off you are left with what...an asset.

Your home is not necessarily an asset once the mortgage is paid off. If your home ends up being worth less than you paid, you have to take a write down on the lost value. Then the home becomes an asset, but only on your balance sheet. It was a net loss from an investment perspective.

I was really annoyed by Kiyosaki's portrayal of a home as a liability. No class of investment can be universally categorized as an asset or liability, because it depends on the performance of the investment and the time period over which you're assessing your balance sheet.

I get what he was saying though. The problem is that *most* people universally consider a home an asset. That's just as dumb as saying it's always a liability.

Asset vs liability is really simple. These are accounting terms, which means figuring out whether your investment is an asset or a liability is a matter of looking at the balance sheet. For a lot of people, and especially in recent years, a home has become a HUGE liability.

The most important message I took from that (rather poor, IMO) book is that you should understand accounting. If you understand accounting, you can draw your own conclusions in an informed way.

[LarThaL]

A few comments on some recently made points:

1. Whether or not your home is an asset or liability, the point is that you still need a place to live. If you want a nice place to live, it will cost more and you will have less to spend in other areas of your life. The point I was making earlier was with regards to value. In a place like NYC, value goes out the window.

2. If you can mortgage to the max then use that cash to generate a positive cash balance against what you pay in mortgage, that is really the best way to go. This can be tricky however. The reality is that many people are living in a perpetual mortgage state that is little different from renting. How many people take a 30 year mortgage, then actually stay the full 30 years to pay it off and own their home?

3. A lot of baby boomers got where they are due to their work ethic. This is lacking in young people today. Many (not all) people coming into the workforce act entitled and just don't have the same independent initiative and drive. I have seen it again and again, even with young physicians just coming into practice. People are willing to work, but they want a 100% return on a 50% effort.