IW STi Forum banner
Cancel
Create thread New Garage Forums

How do you afford an STI...

Jump to Latest
21 - 40 of 48 Posts
#22 ·
join the army, get a clearance, get out of the army, get a job with a defense contractor...win. lol, but yah, mods are still slow coming, the car is fantastic in it's stock format, are there a ton of things i want to do? hell yah, but theres always other bills so just one thing at a time and dont worry about trying to impress people.
 
#24 ·
Lived at home when I was attending school. Had a medium paying job and saved up, had extra $$$ in the bank. I put 10K down and financed about 23K. I gave up a lot of things that could have taken me into different directions in life.....maybe could have met a potential wife......wanting to make $$$$, get the car and not pay rent has its price.

Got out of school, started making more $$$$, kept up with the payments with no problems at all.

Added 1 modification at a time until I got the car the way I want it. I also had a "plan" so my modding won't get out of control.

There are no miracles here. You work hard for something, you can attain it. You don't want to pay 35K, then don't buy the car.

So again, moral of the story: everything has a price. Just think about what you really want out of life.
 
Save
Reply Quote Like Like
#26 ·
The truth is (without reading this thread) that many people that own an STI cannot afford them. Look at some of the polls on income over the years on these sites and you will see a good precent of owners do not make enough to technically be able to afford the car.

I hear people talking about having a part time job and going to college and then they buy a 30k+ car. That is just a poor decision. How do you make it work? Their life has to be work just to afford the car.

How do most of us afford to buy the car and mod it? We buy a car that fits our income. There is a reason why the target buyer of the STI is someone that makes over 100k/year. If you factor in insurance, rent/mortgage and then car I would say to comfortably afford a 30k+ car you should be making at least 60k/year or more.

That is not to say someone making less cannot comfortably afford their car. It is all about priorities in life. If the car is a priority you find a way to make it work. But lets be honest, some are just barely getting by to keep the car or Mommy and Daddy are helping a little bit.

There are some that I would always recommend that they wait to get the car until they are financially stable (out of college, steady job) before making the purchase. Instead of renting an apartment, buy a house or a condo instead of buying a car.
 
#27 ·
I make about 55,000 a year. I own a 2 bed room condo. My mortgage payment is about 750 a month. I have a room mate who pays me $300 a month for the second room and helps with utilities. I bought my 06 used with 32,000 miles for 22,000. Car had some emission problems(catless exhaust/aps 65mm cai). Fixed the problems, tuned the car passed emissions. Pay about 350 a month for the car and 170 for insurance. I have AMAZING credit for my age(23) that allows me to do things most people cant. That and having 3 credit cards with 10,000 dollar limits help. My total credit card debt right now is only 3,000 dollars. Not bad for my income bracket. Oh and most of my debt is school related, I go to nursing school part time.
 
#29 ·
tnolan182 said:
I make about 55,000 a year. I own a 2 bed room condo. My mortgage payment is about 750 a month. I have a room mate who pays me $300 a month for the second room and helps with utilities. I bought my 06 used with 32,000 miles for 22,000. Car had some emission problems(catless exhaust/aps 65mm cai). Fixed the problems, tuned the car passed emissions. Pay about 350 a month for the car and 170 for insurance. I have AMAZING credit for my age(23) that allows me to do things most people cant. That and having 3 credit cards with 10,000 dollar limits help. My total credit card debt right now is only 3,000 dollars. Not bad for my income bracket. Oh and most of my debt is school related, I go to nursing school part time.
Click to expand...

:Cookie: :D

Work on getting that card debt to $0 and paying it off every month. It will help you... Also if you have 3 credit cards with 10k limits each? How long have you had these cards, or is it a total of 10k? You should probably cut down the amount of cards you have to 2, personally I think 3 is too much.

In reality you are buying a 22k dollar car and with your income that sounds fine to me. Now it probably would not be working out as well if you had bought a new car in the mid 30k's :) Smart purchase.
 
#31 ·
I understand that, I wanted to go back for a masters but I already have 2 Bachelor degrees and it really wouldn't do anything for me right now.

Threads like this make me laugh however because if you have to ask how other people can afford to spend money then the OP is probably not in the best of positions to own the car or if they own the car not in position to be making additional purchases :D
 
#32 ·
If you got the money buy it if you don't then don't buy it... I am a part time worker as a waiter going to school full time. Personally I think if you know how to manage your money properly then you shouldn't have problems and if you feel that you will then, dont bother. YOU HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY. :tup:
 
#33 ·
If your looking for the performance levels...swapped GC? But if you want the car for the car then...I honestly couldnt put much input in because I just swapped my 00 RS I'm earning about 3 grand a month with no expenses...army pays for everything.
 
#34 · (Edited)
I was one of the earlier adopters of the GR model and paid a bit over invoice at the time for it. A little north of $37k after 9% in taxes if I recall right.

That said, yea, I'd say the STI is a tier above what most working college students should reasonably afford. In my opinion, it really doesn't make much sense to stretch your finances thin for what is basically a non-essential toy, but many people do make the sacrifices necessary to do so. Depends on your priorities I suppose.

Personally, I waited till I was a few years out of school and in a financial position that allowed me to spend comfortably before throwing down money for the STI (my own metric is to never spend more than what I pay in taxes in a year).
 
#36 ·
tnolan182 said:
That and having 3 credit cards with 10,000 dollar limits help. My total credit card debt right now is only 3,000 dollars.
Click to expand...
this actually doesn't help but rather hurts you. spending only 3k/mo while having 30k maximum only makes you a higher risk individual. when the credit agencies look at this they see you have easy access to 27k extra that you can spend on a whim, considering you avg spending is much less its assumed you would not be able to afford that 27k all in 1 shot. the most optimal for your credit score is to have 50% of your available credit in use.
now granted if you have a good score its likely not going to be much of an issue. but in general (overtime, since you take an initial hit on closing a card) your score could be higher if you closed 2 of those cards or lowered your limits on them (no hit to score)
 
#38 ·
I'm 21 and have pretty good credit for my age. Bought my 04 Sti with no-cosigner or anything. I am a forklift operator at a frozen food storage warehouse. It pays good enough for me to afford a $393 car payment, $200 for full coverage insurance, $400 for rent and my utilities/ cell phone ect. I work my a#$ off and I'm happy to say that I'm comfortably living with owning the STi
 
#39 ·
DaneSTi said:
I'm 21 and have pretty good credit for my age. Bought my 04 Sti with no-cosigner or anything. I am a forklift operator at a frozen food storage warehouse. It pays good enough for me to afford a $393 car payment, $200 for full coverage insurance, $400 for rent and my utilities/ cell phone ect. I work my a#$ off and I'm happy to say that I'm comfortably living with owning the STi
Click to expand...
wow thats some cheap living costs. an apartment alone is more than all those combined around these parts.
 
21 - 40 of 48 Posts
About this Discussion
47 Replies
35 Participants
Last post:
ytsohptwhere
IW STi Forum
posts
4.1M
members
124K
Since
2001
A forum community dedicated to Subaru Impreza and STI owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about performance, engine builds, exhaust, modifications, troubleshooting, maintenance, and more!
Full Forum Listing
Explore Our Forums
GD-General 2.5 Liter/Litre Factory Motor GD-Members' Journals General Subaru Discussions 2015+ STI Discussion