ON: How do you "afford" a new car?

Totally a matter of perspective. That's the great thing about C-D, natch: different walks of life, and perspectives.

I work with a few people who would consider my salary beer money, if they even bothered to think on it for a few minutes. A GM I worked with a couple years ago had an estate on an island. I had the impression he owned most of the (small) island, in the San Juans. $100K for a new Mercedes is a rounding error on that guy's checkbook.

There is a school of thought such that one should never buy sports cars or other fluff if you can't pay cash. Taking huge notes for that kind of thing is a sucker bet due to the interest payments. One of my closest pals gets annual bonuses that would cover most non-Ferrari or Lambo sports car buys in lump sum. He took one and paid cash for an Audi RS5 the other year, with a lot left over for some jewelry for his then-wife. He's a principal dev on a product series you've all heard of, and most are using right now.

Another notch down, I really don't care about a $1K/month car payment or lease, as a percentage of income, if that's what it takes for a ride. Hey, bully for me.

OP (thread I'm quoting) seems to care "a lot" that a car costs $30K, nice trucks $40-50K, assuming the numbers are right. Given average American incomes these days, totally makes sense. Life's expensive, reminds me of another C-D thread whereby it's increasingly difficult to have the trappings of life that were taken as granted c. 1955. No, not a bully-for-the-old-days comment so much as the observation that life's becoming more precarious comparing salaries to wants/desires.