...and a new car!
We loved our Subaru, but... It was like a college kid's car, a bit too loud on the highway, a stick-shift, a little gutless, stripped down, kinda tin can-y. So I've wanted a more grown-up car for a while now. I decided I like the Audi A3, and Scott gradually came to like them as well. At the point of, "I like this kind of car, and I'm not too fussed about the color," I'm pretty much out of the car talk by then. But Scott spec'ed it all out and knew exactly what we wanted and needed. He spent months (for reals) finding all different potential cars for us, finally finding THE one just last week. He told me about it, I said yeah, baby! And we both said, Sold! We went and bought it yesterday and I LOVE IT.
Here's the new love, a 2010 Audi A3 Quattro, used, has 10k km on it, that is black-blue and has heated seats + all sorts of other features that Scott can tell you about if you're into that sort of thing.
Ahhh, lovely. And an unbelievable pleasure to drive or be a passenger in. My goodness, this is why rich people buy nice cars (and why we buy used, very low-end models of nice cars LOL).
Funny story -- we went to the bank to get a car loan, because we're Americans and we think car loans are how you buy cars. And because car loans are usually like 3-4% (or at least that's what I remember). So this very cool lady helping us is desultorily showing us the personal loan they can give (they don't do car loans, only leases [the worst deal ever] or personal loans), what it looks like for a two-year repay and how much the interest is. The rate is 11.9%, which is making me all glum coz that is totally ridiculous for a car loan (which it wasn't). The lady starts to look like she REALLY wants to say something, so I catch her eye and say, "what? Say what you're thinking." She bursts out with how she would never pay that much interest, she'd rather (wait for it, it's totally predictable) go on holiday with that 3k of interest LOL. And then she pulls up our account there and gets even more agitated, "you have all this money in here, why don't you just pay for the car??" And I'm all, "but that's my savings, I don't want to spend that!" We just look at each other across the wide, wide bridge of cross-cultural confusion. And then we both started laughing, and she's like, "really, just pay for the car, you will still have plenty of money in the account and you can make the 'loan payment' to your savings account instead."
We laughed a lot, thanked her, shook hands and left the bank, then called the car dealer and said to just send us the invoice. It was fun, actually. I've not been used to people talking me out of doing business with them. But that is SO Swiss, I should have predicted it beforehand. They would do anything to get around paying even like 0.5% interest on something. Which is ironic, given that you can write of *any* interest on your taxes, even credit cards 'n shit. I'm guessing mostly foreigners are taking advantage of that allowance.
So yeah, now I'm freaking out ever so slightly that we spent such a chunk of our rainy-day fund. Eek. But then again, I have zero buyer's remorse. LOVE THIS CAR!
(I should probably still write a long post about our US trip... I am feeling so lazy lately. This is highly unusual.)
Here's the new love, a 2010 Audi A3 Quattro, used, has 10k km on it, that is black-blue and has heated seats + all sorts of other features that Scott can tell you about if you're into that sort of thing.
Ahhh, lovely. And an unbelievable pleasure to drive or be a passenger in. My goodness, this is why rich people buy nice cars (and why we buy used, very low-end models of nice cars LOL).
Funny story -- we went to the bank to get a car loan, because we're Americans and we think car loans are how you buy cars. And because car loans are usually like 3-4% (or at least that's what I remember). So this very cool lady helping us is desultorily showing us the personal loan they can give (they don't do car loans, only leases [the worst deal ever] or personal loans), what it looks like for a two-year repay and how much the interest is. The rate is 11.9%, which is making me all glum coz that is totally ridiculous for a car loan (which it wasn't). The lady starts to look like she REALLY wants to say something, so I catch her eye and say, "what? Say what you're thinking." She bursts out with how she would never pay that much interest, she'd rather (wait for it, it's totally predictable) go on holiday with that 3k of interest LOL. And then she pulls up our account there and gets even more agitated, "you have all this money in here, why don't you just pay for the car??" And I'm all, "but that's my savings, I don't want to spend that!" We just look at each other across the wide, wide bridge of cross-cultural confusion. And then we both started laughing, and she's like, "really, just pay for the car, you will still have plenty of money in the account and you can make the 'loan payment' to your savings account instead."
We laughed a lot, thanked her, shook hands and left the bank, then called the car dealer and said to just send us the invoice. It was fun, actually. I've not been used to people talking me out of doing business with them. But that is SO Swiss, I should have predicted it beforehand. They would do anything to get around paying even like 0.5% interest on something. Which is ironic, given that you can write of *any* interest on your taxes, even credit cards 'n shit. I'm guessing mostly foreigners are taking advantage of that allowance.
So yeah, now I'm freaking out ever so slightly that we spent such a chunk of our rainy-day fund. Eek. But then again, I have zero buyer's remorse. LOVE THIS CAR!
(I should probably still write a long post about our US trip... I am feeling so lazy lately. This is highly unusual.)
posted by Swizzies at 19:49
5 Comments:
This story is awesome. We paid cash for our Subaru, but had a three-year, 2.9% loan for our minivan, which we just paid off! Cultural differences can be funny.
I'm just glad you posted something!
XO
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cool car! Is it about the same size as your Subaru?
What an accomplishment to pay cash upfront for an almost-new vehicle in SWITZERLAND, no less, where nothing is cheap!
Happy driving!
Pretty car! I love it! And I'm also glad that you posted something :-)
looking forward to your USA post!
I LOVE your new car!! Such a good ride and cute too! BTW, I'm glad you paid out of pocket. If you are ever feeling all American again and want to pay interest on anything, give me a call and I'll go all Swiss on your a**! ;)
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