Yes, that is one of the differences. But, what we DO spend on a vehicle today, we get a vehicle with a lot more features on it, less maintenance, and better reliability.

I'm single, and don't have kids. Never married.


You also have the right to apply for a job at another college or university that might (?) pay you more. Or, to teach in public grade-schools....Teacher's unions are often very powerful, and get a lot of benefits for their members.


Do college-students even USE traditional books any more? Seems like everything, nowadays, is on-line. Some schools even offer on-line degrees.

 

Good discussion. When I was younger, I thought I would replace my cars every three years cause it would be nice to drive something different and change things up. Then Life happens, and I ended up only buying 3 brand new cars and now two used CPO cars in over 32 years. I still have two cars, 2011 and 2013 with 60k miles on them, so still babies. I have gone the past couple years literally doing one oil change and replacing windshield wiper inserts on the 2011. 2013 is still CPO warranty till May 2021. Guess I like not keeping up with Jones’ and spending my money on hookers and alcohol (meaning saving money for future endeavors). But to each his/her own.

 

just wondering, how much did it cost to extend to an 8 year CPO warranty?

the part about spending your money in that way was uncalled for.

 

The answer is, adjusted for inflation cars are not really any more expensive. But, adjusted for inflation median incomes are actually lower. Other things people pay for, housing, healthcare, food, college and other private educational expenses are all much higher than they were, so cars are less affordable despite not really being more expensive.

in 1995 the median household income was $55,931. Adjusted for inflation, in today's dollars thats $95,998.51.

in 2020 the median household income is in fact only $78,500.

So the typical American family had way more spending power 25 years ago than they do today. If you factor in that housing costs, healthcare costs, food costs and other expenses are way higher than the rate of inflation compared to 25 years ago, you see where the issue is. You have longer finance terms to bring monthly payments down, but the need for that isnt because of the price of cars, its because of the squeeze on families monthly budgets. 25 years ago people had MUCH higher monthly car payments compared to today adjusted for inflation.

The average new car in 2020 is $37,851. Adjust that down for inflation to 1995, comes to $22,052. What was the average cost of a new car in 1995? About $20,000.

 

^^^ great post.

not sure why housing or food is much higher after inflation.

education and healthcare, has got to be higher even with inflation though.

higher education is the biggest rip off of all time in this country, and the more loans the govt offers, the more the colleges charge. and don't get me started on "text books" pure extortion, and changing a few words each year so students have to get the 'new' one. i just wish there could be an investigation into it because clearly people are being paid off. /rant

healthcare is just an inefficient giant mess.

 

They also change the order or verbiage on the questions sections so you can't use the old ones. The switch to digital made it worse because not only are you paying some ridiculous fees to a temporary license, but then you can't sell it back to recoup any of the funds.

 

The big run ups in real estate values over the last 20 years have really increased cost beyond inflation.

 

so i just don't get why there isn't more outrage about this. it's completely ripping off young people, their parents, and the taxpayer.

 

Its a total ripoff, it was back when I was in college and it still is today.

As an example, I graduated college in 2003, When I was there, my tuition was $26,000 a year. Adjusted for inflation thats $40,035 today. Tuition at the same school today is $58,550 per year.

 

Many things affect food prices (weather/climate, crop-sizes, fuel/transportation costs, what it costs the farmer or rancher to grow or raise the food, labor-wages in the grocery stores, etc...). But housing prices are usually determined by one of two things....supply and demand for housing in the area, and the size/condition of the building itself. In coastal parts of California, for instance, in spite of the earthquake and wildfire risks, housing prices have been driven insane because of the glamour and hype given to the year-around mild climate, lack of snow, and lack of Florida-type humidity in the dry summers.

Agreed, but we're also (me included) staring to get off-topic......vehicle prices compared to income.

 

Its not off topic at all actually.

 

College is out of control, I went to a JC to curve some of the costs. In the Early 2000's my JC was $12 per unit, now it's $48! Which is still alot cheaper than jumping right into a 4 year University. Where I ended up going was about $48,000 per year now it's $70,000. Scam

 

no disrespect to you at all but i put a lot of that down to realtors fees... a seller wants to at least recoup that, so if it's 6% on the purchase and 6% on the sale, people automatically want to get all that back which is tens or hundreds of thousands.
of course they can't always get it back but it puts huge upward pressure. realtor fees in uk are typically 1-2% - much more reasonable.
the u.s. realtor business is completely rigged and controlled with giant lobbying involved to protect them.
online home sales are slowly coming along with realtor orgs fighting it all the way, gee, just like car dealers.

 

Its really not that. Realtor fees if anything have gone down. Its supply and demand, sellers want to get as much money as they can and buyers will pay what the market dictates they must pay. If all of a sudden realtor fees went down sellers aren't all of a sudden going to reduce what they sell properties for, they want to get as much money for their property as they can.

And we do not make 6% on the purchase and on the sale. We make a portion of a 2-3% commission on each transaction. The "6%" commission you talk about is the gross commission that is split between listing and selling agents on a particular property and that commission is split between those agents and their brokers. And that commission nowadays is rarely 6%. 5% is much more common, or even less. We also pay all the costs of marketing the property, which is well into the 4 figures, we stage properties and my company fronts up to 5% of the sales price of the property towards fix up repairs and prep at no cost or markup.

And walk a day in my shoes lol, we earn our pay. its very hard work, high stress, very uncertain.

 

can't take the fees out of the dynamics though. the gross commission is a 'pressure' on transactions because sellers don't want to end up with less than they started in a flat market if they have to sell. and sure, buyers and sellers is adversarial, not that realtors care overall, because their incentive is to close the deal, not make the most for either party.

again, no disrespect, not saying your job is easy. realtors are also needed because house transactions are so ludicrously complex, driven by the real estate (broker/realtor/lendor/title/insurer/...) industry itself. a guy who works for me is buying a home and i couldn't make any sense of his 'closing statement'.