Age/Income Poll
 

KevinK121 created a poll in another thread, and there seemed to be quite a bit of interest in the results, but most of us agreed we needed more options. So I'm re-launching the poll here with a wider range of options that I think might help give us better "resolution."

To stick with his original theme, this should be your Age and Income when you purchased your BRZ (or FR-S, you poor, unfortunate soul). If it was a gift to you, please do not participate in the poll. Thanks!

I'm not too sure about the age ranges, as 25 is totally different from 33. But this is a big improvement over the other!

Yeah, I could have broken it down even further but I didn't want to do TOO many options. Someone could always create a Version 3.0 poll, lolol.

I'm 16 and my dad is a 1%'er. He gives me a 1M monthly allowance.

Your reasoning assumes a $30k salary can pay for a car.

In reality, a $30k salary is the same as someone gifting you the car... because most loan places would not offer you something competitive with that type of annual income.

-alex

There is no "reasoning" behind any of the options on this poll. It's simply covering all age ranges and incomes.

So why exclude those that got the car as a gift if you are trying to cover all ranges?

Anyone not making enough money to support a new $30k car should be excluded, that's all I'm saying.

-alex

Only one in my young age group in the 25-69k range here so far it looks like.

I read the poll wrong, income is the same, my age was a year off =/=

I dunno. You'll have to ask the person who originally created the poll. I just copied his requirements and expanded the options.

I assume his reasoning was that he wants to know what kind of income people had who consciously took on a car payment. If you were gifted a car for free by your parents, it doesn't matter what kind of income you have; it was free. You have no payments to make. You weren't basing getting the vehicle on your income.

If you don't have any other bills because you live with your parents, but you decided to take on a car payment because you can pay just that with your $30k income (terrible idea, but whatever) then I suppose it still represents that you considered your $30k income to be sufficient for you to purchase the car. I mean, it kind of makes sense if you're just trying to gauge people's thought processes. We all know anyone choosing the <$30k option is getting help one way or another, but there's no sense in excluding them since it doesn't hurt the data in any way.

Hooray I am not alone in my category!

Oops ... I voted and I have the FR-S, not the BRZ.

Haha. Fixed!

30 versions may not be enough.

A) The relevancy depends upon people on the Internet being truthful.
B) There is no distinction between personal or household income.
C) Everyone voting based on USD?
D) No matter how perfect the poll is made nor how many options there are, someone will find something wrong with it.
E) Fishpockets.

On the plus side, I don't feel quite as old now!

(Edited because exchange rates are a thing)

Exchange rates are not a thing unless you are exchanging you pay for other currency. $1 Canadian in Canada is a $1 not 70 some odd cents.


No matter how you break this down the data is still suspect as far as income goes. Income is very regionally biased. The guy making $40K in New York city is not on an even playing field with the guy making $40K in Backwater Arkansas.


As flawed as the data will be it is still very interesting to see.


This is actually making me feel older since as of this moment there are only two in my category.

Make that three! (guessing on age bracket here)

Good points. Not only does cost of living and income fluctuate based upon region, but so does the cost of the car. Maybe not as much between different US states, but likely between different countries. Then that gets ugly because standard equipment can also vary.

To be clear, I agree that the information is interesting. I was only pointing out that no mater how many times it was redone, someone wouldn't be happy.

Yeah we would need a comprehensive poll to solve this. We could always create a Survey Monkey thing if we really wanna be accurate, lol.

I just wanted to solve the issue in the last poll where everyone was lumped into the same answer.

Back in the dead of winter while really, really bored I started compiling all the data from the age/job threads to see what the "average", forum using, owner would be. I gave up about 60% into it when no matter how many more data points I added the answer continued to be around 80% as a 32 year old engineer/IT/Other high tech position. There was also a high number of military personnel which not surprisingly also were in the more tech type trades.
As rough as the data from this thread will be it will still be interesting to see if the salary levels seem to line up with my findings.
(Ya, I love me some stats!)

Yep, there are 3 of us now! Pretty sure when all is said and done we will be the odd men out.

Well, there's only 2 in my group, myself included, so I guess you and I are not in the same group.

*EDIT: Doh! In the time it took me to type that out, my category skyrocketed to 3!!!! Damn, this internet thingie moves fast.

:burnrubber:

There are only a total of 4 in my whole age group so far and I know there are a whole lot more of us than that here!
Probably past most of our bed time is all.

Well you gotta account for the Denny's early bird special!

Yeah I suppose no matter how it's grouped someone will feel it's missing certain criteria or data. In the end to get it tweaked into a really precise manner it would be close to 30 options. That's also really kinda splitting hairs. This is quite a lot of options also.

Unlisted variables aside my poll was to kinda see how many were in my similar bracket.

Interesting to see how the data points fall in more spread scale.

Either way it seems I didn't get quite what I was hoping for in terms of results. Was hoping more people in my age group 25-30 and income 40-50k were buying these. Again, not taking other variables into account (debt/income, cost of living/location, etc).

Either way thanks for spreading my idea out a bit more :thumbsup:

For one, people who are gifted the car don't need to work for it and pay for it in the same way as most people do. Therefore their data is considered, by myself at least, as irrelevant to the scope of this poll.

That being said when I created my poll I included that because people are typically going to vote in the poll even if there isn't an option that suits them. I'm sure there more than a few younger folks here who were fortunate enough not to have had to earn their car the traditional way.

I agree. Maybe they have help with payments.

Also

They could have saved quite a bit over a period of time or had help pitching in for a down payment.

Either way, these scenarios fall outside of the intended scope of this poll.

Less than 25 income more than $90k CAD here, but only if I include my rental income from my home, otherwise I am down one income bracket.

You're well ahead of the curve, sir. I certainly wasn't making that kind of money when I was under 25 and I most certainly didn't have investment properties!

Curious -- do the price of goods generally scale linearly with the conversion rate US/CAD? I've had people tell me that the price of certain goods in Canada is much higher than the US after factoring conversion...

Unfortunately for my job/industry my wages are pretty much maxed out at this point.

Some things are priced much much different up here, others are close to par.

You are making an assumption yourself.

You haven't factored in the situation of the person making $30k a year.

What if they are in a situation where they don't pay much for rent and the rest of their bills isn't much of anything? Affording a BRZ/FRS wouldn't be out of the picture at all. All about how you budget and the lifestyle you live on top of your situation going into buying a car. Unless you make so little where you can't afford a car payment then no, no one is gifting you the car.

Dude that is the most immature statement I have ever heard. I am 25 and make 28k a year and I payed cash for my car which was a brand new 2015 BRZ limited. That was with my money nobody helped me pay for it. Its is called knowing how to live and spend your money to get the stuff you really want in life. I am 100% independent so don't ever insult anybody like that when you don't know their circumstance.

Grats to this guy ^

Saving that much would be some sort of will power I can't understand. Again, grats.

I am not making assumptions about the person's lifestyle. I am merely stating that for purposes of a loan, making so little on paper makes getting a competitive loan offer difficult, no different than being "gifted" a car or having someone else cosign on a lease.

If someone bought the car cash, it's the same as being gifted the car for purposes of the reasoning laid out in this poll by OP.



I'm glad you were able to pay off the car completely. But I wasn't making an attempt to insult you, merely pointing out holes in the poll and the logic behind it.

You paid cash for your car, great. In essence you gifted the car to yourself and you don't have any payments tied to the car....

Again, my point is that the "sub-$30k" argument in this poll should be viewed in the same category as being given the car for free. It completely changes how one's buying behavior is and what they do with the car after it is purchased.

-alex

Edit: my statement was made in context of a bank loan + full insurance coverage.

This is one of my pet peeves.
You don't convert or count exchange on price alone and try to compare. In Canada a Canadian dollar is worth one dollar, period. You can't say well that would be 80 cents in the US because you are not buying it there.
When comparing prices they are in effect exactly what they appear to be not reduced by exchange rates.
If an item costs $1 and the wage is $10 then any exchange would be applied to both. This means that after exchange the item may cost 80 cents but the wage goes to $8 so proportionally exactly the same.
Soooo.... when we pay $6 a gallon for gas it is exactly the same as you paying $6 a gallon, you do not apply exchange or try to reduce it in anyway.
Not to mention that there are times like a good part of last year where the Canadian dollar is actually worth more than the US one.
Does this make any sense to anybody but me?

Makes perfect sense if people don't "tldr"

Makes sense, although some of us had to learn it the hard way. :cheers:

Cool there are more people in my age and income bracket than I original thought.

I'm actually quite impressed with how even the distribution is overall. Kinda cool. Really makes me want to create a SurveyMonkey with more questions to find out more about the wide demographic!

If anyone would find that interesting, feel free to suggest any questions you would want to see.

25, 32k income. I didn't buy my car outright. Just saved up, as I always do, put about 8k down and then just budget and save best I can. It's all in what one wants to afford. I don't drink/drug, etc, like a good deal in my age range. If someone spends even 20 dollars a week on things like that, or doesn't, in my case, then the amount adds up quickly. Extrapolated over the course of a couple years, you have a nice chunk of money.

I also got a good, in my opinion, finance rate of 2.4%. My credit score is good from paying student loans on time, etc.

I desperately want a better job, but it is difficult out there even with a B.A.. Finding it is really about connections from friends/family, etc, which my friends/family don't seem to possess haha.

Thanks man. I wanted this car so for years I never ate out I never spent money on needless crap I always tried to do fun things that didn't cost money like outdoors type things. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do but I did it and now I have the car that I always wanted and still can easily afford all the other bills. Club 86 baby

I got sorta lucky with my job. Had to put school on hold with about 3/4 of my AA complete and took a really shitty temp job in the bmed field. I applied for a job within the company that was relevant to my education after being there for only a couple weeks. I didn't end up getting that job but from my interview process I was recommended for an entry level job that I would have going after when I did complete my AA. I'm 26 and only in the high 30s and with overtime considered the mid/low 40s but I was still able to cut out at least a year of the process getting to this level.

Putting it this way I feel much more fortunate ha. I know with the experience I'll keep going up. We have tuition reimbursement too so eventually I'll have my bachelor's in biomedical engineering.... I wonder what car I'll be shooting for at that point lol