nberry:

Christian, I am curious. If your son school mates make comments about your R8/Porsche and infer you're a millionaire, what the hell do German kids parents drive their children to school with? Kia's? Prius? Do they own shoes? Do you live in a slum district?yes

We live in one of the better regions in Bavaria. My kids go to public school (again, one of the "better" ones).

95% of the cars are cheaper hatchbacks, smaller cross-over SUVs and similar cars in the 10-35k EUR price range.

The rest are Audis, BMWs, Mercedes in the 40-70k EUR price range. There is one parent driving a Lamborghini Aventador (I do not know him personally) and one driving a Mercedes C63 (I know him personally, sometimes even his 18 year old kid drives the car...like a maniac, even near the school Smiley).

Many of the kids come from middle class families and they live in houses, not condos but most houses have around 120-150 square meters on average, the garden usually around 400 square meters. For comparison: Our house has 400 square meters and 2000 square meters garden. Some of our neighbors even have swimming pools, which is considered pure luxury in Germany. Mostly because of water cost. A good friend has a beautiful house, very modern architecture from the 70s with a very large indoor(!) pool. He hasn't used that indoor pool for a couple of years now because water cost was too high in the end. 1500 EUR per month just for water and pool heating/etc.? No way.

Hmm, now that I think about it, with all your lease payments over the years you easily could have a million dollars in the bank.indecision

This is where you are wrong: With all those lease payments, I had money "available" for stock market investments. I did pretty well over the past couple of years. Buying the cars would have "blocked" capital and selling these cars would have been a pain in the ass. In Germany, good luck with trying to sell a 100k+ car privately. Smiley So many psychos out there...


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RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 991.2 Carrera GTS Cabriolet (2018), Porsche Cayenne S Diesel (2017), Audi R8 V10 Plus (2016), Mini JCW (2015)