Ask Bark: Living In Mom's Basement With a Viper ACR

Jeremy writes:

I’m making about $60,000/year after taxes as a recent college grad and I’m still living with my parents. My expenses excluding student loans are minimal, and those loans are small enough that I should have them paid off this year.

I want to buy a car with limits far beyond mine and try not to kill myself with it. I’ve settled on the Dodge Viper ACR.

This is where you come in: I need you to talk me out of it.

Normally I’d wait a couple of years to get a really nice down payment together and consider buying used, but since Dodge is ending orders for the Viper next year I don’t have time to get a lot of money together.

Over the course of a 48-month loan, the payment alone would eat a full paycheck each month, excluding the cost of storing the car (no space at my parents’ house), insurance (I can’t even get any companies to give me a quote for a policy online), and consumables (fuel isn’t a big deal now, but what about in two years?). I figure all-in I’d spend about $4,000 per month, leaving me about $1,000 each month to live on. It’s doable, but tough even with my low-cost living.

This probably wouldn’t be enough dough for me to live on by myself, so I’d still be at home while paying off the loan. I don’t think my parents would be too enthused with me buying a six-figure car while living at home.

I’ve looked at alternatives like the Corvette Z06 and Ford Shelby GT350R, but the Z06’s engine issues give me pause and the GT350R doesn’t look “set 12 production car lap records” good.

So this is where I stand: I have a large number of relevant and important reasons not to handicap myself at the beginning of my adult life. On the other hand, to hell with Baruth’s disapproval — I can buy a car with six-point harnesses from the factory and put a tag on it. Basically racecar. No, fuck racecar — ‘MURICA!

Please help convince me this is a terrible idea and I should buy this low-mileage Mazdaspeed Miata I’ve been looking at on Craigslist instead.

This is a terrible idea, and you should buy that low-mileage Mazdaspeed Miata that you’ve been looking at on Craigslist instead. Are we good?

Okay, seriously, let’s get into why this is such an awful, terrible, no-good, very bad idea.

First of all, the very notion that you think it’s okay to mooch off of your parents while you make $60,000 post-tax is downright offensive. Seriously. As a parent myself, I’m personally offended. If my son or daughter ever came to me with such an abhorrent idea, I’d break all sorts of corporal punishment laws on his or her ass.

Look, I get that you’re a car enthusiast. So am I. And if I could convince my dad to let me come live above his garage at his retirement home in Hilton Head, SC, I bring home enough money to buy a McLaren 675LT. But I wouldn’t do that, because I’m a grown fucking man. And, like it or not, so are you.

So, here’s what you should do with your $5,000 monthly take-home pay:

1. Move out from your parents’ house into a nice, upscale apartment for about $1200/month.
2. Allocate about $400/month for groceries, and another $400/month for utilities.
3. Get some silk sheets.
4. Download Tinder.
5. Spend lots of money on alcohol and dating. Get laid as much as possible. You’re only young and single once.
6. Give yourself about $900/month to spend on a car, including insurance.
7. Save a grand each month since an H-1B worker who lied about his certifications on his application will replace you at your tech job.

You can buy a lot of car for $900/month. Like, a lot of car. Don’t act like the choices are a Viper or a clapped-out Mazdaspeed Miata with shitty gear ratios. Here’s a list of all sorts of wonderful cars you could be standing in front of in your Tinder profile pic for $900:

• New Mustang GT/ Camaro SS
• New Audi S4
• New Dodge Charger SRT 392
• New Nissan 370Z NISMO
• New Subaru WRX STI
• New BMW M235i
• Used Aston Martin (JUST KIDDING)

American muscle, JDM l33tness, European sensibility. Take your pick. Any and all of these cars are fast enough to make you soil yourself on a track, will pull immense amounts of action, and wouldn’t make you a douche who lets his parents pay for his existence.

Let’s be honest: you can’t drive a Viper ACR around a track any faster than you can drive any of the above. In fact, I could probably get in my Fiesta ST and beat your ACR-driving ass around a track. So stop it. Seriously.

Congrats on the good gig. You deserve a nice car. But it should be a car you can actually afford. Move out from mommy’s basement. Go be a man. And if you think I’m being hard on you, just wait until you read the comments.

Want Bark to yell at you, too? Then email him at barkm302@gmail.com or troll him on Twitter. He’s got his Dad voice ready to go. He also can offer you sensible car buying advice.