A buddy was being a pest saying that I could have bought a new car with the money that I "wasted" on dancers. I drive a friend's very old beat up car, btw.
I thought his statement mentally challenged to say the least. I asked him what do you think I'd rather have a brand new car or a bunch of dances? He says the new car of course! Geez, what a waste of good money, imo. I'd rather the dancers get the new car.
So new car or dances? :) (I'm assuming new car wins, btw.)
Translated to the brand new sports car equivalent - this years spending alone would buy the car pictured below, and there still would be lots of cash left over
Too much spending this year, no doubt
Hi David9999,
That is a very nice looking car. :) Well, if you had a good time and it was within budget . . . damn, it is difficult to argue against fun unless there is some serious downside. Looking back, I usually regret not spending the money not that I had much to spare. But, I remember the special girls that just don't come around too often and they were a lot more valuable to me than the money. Yes, every once in awhile I got a bad deal. But, it seems so little in comparison that it is like count your blessings. Heck, you can even get a bad deal at Burger King. ;)
I'm surprised so far the girls are winning. :)
in fact certain dancers, and especially two dancers in particular (those 2 accounting for about 1 in 2 dollars spent) - have been well worth it
Now if I start posting sports car equivalence using the true italian jobs, for example like:
Now at that level of spending, that would be really be dumb, although technically I could handle that too w/o any problems
The other one was cuter. :) Hell, with those sums investing in the problems of your own little dive might be interesting. ;) OK, unless you're crazy probably not the best of ideas, but I will say that some gold, amateur gold, walks in off the street now and then. When I look at the girls that don't get hired it is like WHAT? We got a bunch o blubber butts and you're letting those honeys leave?! Looks are irrelevant?! Who the hell is the cult leader spreading the looks are irrelevant message? That man is effective. I hear it from dancers, bartenders, customers, friends, it some type of twisted religion or mind control----maybe to turn women into blubber butts?
Not that I'd ever buy one although just the idea is entertaining, from what I've seen with those type of cars like the Lamborghini (which cost at a min 10 times that of the Pontiac Solstice) - they are complicated not just mechanically but for various miscellaneous reasons, for one thing you'd have to be constantly paying off parking lot attendants because they generally cannot be parked and left like a regular car, for example at high end hotels, they usually have a small area up front where they can be watched 24/7. Of course if you happen to be in a building where you don't want your identity known, they are obviously not the kind of vehicle to use. However like any asset, each year they still retain a good amount of the value initially invested.
By the way, on the Pontiac the intent from inception was to design an off-the-shelf parts car -and at the same time give it a relatively high end look, which they've clearly succeeded in doing. That car in fact is normally less than 30k
Jablake, never buy a car. We'd rather listen to how the justice system forces you to walk everywhere.
My car works fine. I'll take the dances if I had to do things over again. Of course I would want good value for the dances I got.
Now if someone offered me a choice as a prize, I would take the car and probably sell it. Then invest some of the money and spend the rest as I pleased. Probably some on dances.
Now if I was driving somebody else's car, I would seriously consider spending less on dances and spending money on a car. I would work on a budget if my money was that tight or needed to be. You can still have fun in strip clubs without spending a fortune. If you can't, I would look for a cheaper hobby and/or a second job and make a list and keep track of where every dollar went to. Just what I would do. Obviously I'm not the average American because I pay off my credit card balance every month and have no debt other than my mortgage on my house. I tend to save money before I buy something and I'm saving for retirement as well.
Hi parodyman,
Think of it like Spinach. ;)
Hi casualguy,
I've been driving different cars for years that I didn't own. In the latest case the friend wanted a new car, but didn't want to lose his old car. He had become attached to it.
It was funny a friend let me borrow his car and started apologizing before he even handed over the keys! :) He is doing me a huge favor and yet has some wacked out idea that he needs to apologize to the person he is doing the favor for!? Talk about completely crazy---he got screwed by the courts also, BIG TIME!!! :(
Anyway, he let me borrow his old Ford--don't remember the model--he had just paid it off about a month earlier and was very PROUD that he had paid his debt off in full. Like he has won the Super Bowl or something magnificent. He HATED the car though (for very good reason, I later learned). :( As luck would have it at the same time he made his final car payment he got a beautiful ray of sunshine amongst gloom and doom and terror of an incredibly evil corrupt court system. The beautiful ray of sunshine? A dream job from a medium sized company that he was well qualified to do. The boss and him just seem to hit off as did he and the co-workers. A brand new red sports car at company expense?! Proof positive in his opinion that there must be a God who said this poor guy has wrongly suffered enough. He needs a little help from the man in the Heavens. He says to me "What other explanation could there be for all this good fortune falling into my lap!??? It is God saving me. Honestly. God knows how much abuse you can take and if you believe he will save you. A red sports car AT COMPANY EXPENSE? That has to be the Lord's work. :)" It wouldn't occur to him that busting his butt, sending out resumes, getting qualified, making an excellent impression at the interview, working hard in the past, etc. etc. etc. had some small minor remote role. Oh well, he was a sweet guy and really didn't push his religion that hard. His story to the best of my knowledge ended very happy with complete freedom from the abuse of a vile corrupt evil stupid insane court system.
***Did he "blame the system"? Actually, he did. :) He blamed it a lot, whine, whine, whine (almost 10% as bad as me) and he was 100% correct. Better than that he did try positive approaches to try and reform the system. He wasn't lazy at all. He got working with some Christian politician and of course lots of work, but the fraud and corruption not even dented. Screw reform! :) My other "reform minded" buddy who called and is still working for one modest reform or another, I told him that very thing just a few days ago, plus I don't give a damn one way or the other----good or bad. :) He is one of these God will save you types also, but even less preachy----supposedly according to the vile government he was involved in some serious drug traffic----of course, I don't know that he was innocent, but in years and years and years of knowing him he seems more like a paternalist. The government needs to tell you what to do, what to think, what to consume, all for your own well being and healthy happy families. Drugs = BAD!!! Government needs to be protector in all respects for everyone. :(
Strip clubs for these 2 buddies? Well, the man with the red sports car believes you can only have fun with a woman AFTER marriage and you're only supposed to have one marriage and one wife. Not a good candidate. He says do the stippers want to get and stay married? ;) The other man would be like do the strippers want to reform the system? He was banging this lady that I know for free and she says he could be a porn star, but all he cares about is politics. She says I care about politics too, but not 24 hours a day. She says to me tell him I'm available anytime any hour if he doesn't want to talk politics. :) He sure as heck doesn't look like a porn star and he also believes looks are irrelevant. Must be in the Bible somewhere.
Sounds like your friend got in trouble for doing drugs or getting involved with friends who were. I'm not sure but that's the impression I got. If finding God or whatever keeps him out of trouble, good for him. If I had a car I didn't like, I would sell it and use the money elsewhere. Might not want to tell him that though if you're using it.
In Detroit you are what you drive, even with the auto industry decline. Women will rate and rank men by what they drive, a concept we sold to the rest of the country which is now smart enough to reject it. A new car will cost a guy anywhere between $200 and $450 a month, with note and insurance. With no car note that money can be spent in clubs. Dancers will not know what you drive, unless you have serious OTC action. So, who cares what you own or drive as long as you have transportation and are having fun.
Car
I'll give you my address if you're offering.
Forget "notes" I am talking all cash, however assuming someone was single and this mattered my guess is that maybe 98% of women wouldn't know the difference between a 30k Solstice and Lamborghini Murciélago costing over 360k. Great site for those interested in or just like to admire these cars is lamborghini-talk.com
Now obviously some women appreciate fine cars. A few decades back there was this regular (non-strip) semi-upscale club that I lived not far from, so I would drop by 2 or 3 times a week, and the (middle aged) owner would show up (lets say every few weeks,) and he would pull up front, and he would always have TWO beautiful girls with him, one on each arm walking in - there was no valet service, but he would have one of the bouncers park the his car and he would rotate his cars - one day a ROLLS ROYCE, then a JAG, and then a top end MERCEDES BENZ - he was short but with his half tint glasses and sort of this (italian actor) Marcello Mastroianni look to him - it made quite an impression on customers when he showed up.
By the way, this owner was a real prick, borderline mobster type (owned many parking garages too, always cash businesses etc) - but he of course he got the women
I remember I once had a sports car. Most of the time nobody I met knew what kind of car I had unless I took them for a drive. If someone did know what kind of car I drove, they kept asking if they could drive it or borrow it. I actually did let a few dancers drive it once over the years. I wasn't exactly that comfortable doing it but they didn't go far. That car was fun to drive but very expensive to maintain since it was a GM car with lots of problems. Consumer reports rated it the 2nd worst in reliability right behind the Corvette. I started going to strip clubs not too long after I owned it. I had already paid for it since I had enough money to pay it all off. However I was averaging $2000 a year in maintenance bills not long after the 3 year warranty expired. I thought that sucked since I could be paying off a new car for that much money. I got smarter and bought a more reliable car. Now I have over 2000 a year going into a Roth IRA instead of paying maintenance bills.
This is a picture of a JAG and it should be the YEAR 2008 STRIP CLUB SPENDING - CAR EQUIVALENT budget goal for every serious PL
David9999: I'm with you.
That's a beautiful JAG worthy of any dancer and I'm hanging it on my wall as a daily reminder of the optimal amount to spend on these lovely dancers.
I'd rather put the money working for me in investments rather than a car that depreciates. But I guess whatever works for you. I'm somewhere around 20 to 30 years from retirement unless I succeed beyond my wildest dreams of getting a million in retirement money before then.
Yeah, cars are a bad investment. My whole life plan has always been, to get to some city where I don't need one -- Chicago, New York, yes; better, Amsterdam, London. And then get rid of all my things, except some very nice clothes, the bags they go in, minimum furniture (I'm figuring bed desk chair chest-of-drawers), and a skillet. Then put all my money in a bank.
I keep thinking I want to do that, and I keep not doing it.
"I'd rather put the money working for me in investments rather than a car that depreciates. But I guess whatever works for you."
Right, but that JAG in the picture is FULLY depreciated already
What is the depreciation on lap dances?
Lap dances as a non-asset would be in the nature of an expense item, meaning (in effect) the value is written off right away (i.e 100% immediate depreciation), similar to taking a trip to Europe. You spend 500 one night on lap dances, and its gone forever right there and then. Now of course the memory and so forth can linger.
The memory of driving a Jag can linger, too.
If the goal is a decent sports car but mostly a showy care, this used JAG convertible (cited above) will probably sell for merely the dealer setup cost of a new $360,000 Lamborghini - maybe 9k to 10k or less, and yet it has much of the prestige value, if that's what you want
Just the dollar/euro change this year or so, actually put the Lamborghini up another 30 to 40k
Of course nothing matches a Lamborghini, except maybe Ferrari and Aston Martin and a few others, but you can do very well today at very low cost with (relatively) exotic cars
My theory about luxury items (assuming you really like these things) - is to try to get 90% of the benefit at less than 10% of the cost, and JAGS while not technically the best cars, do have a certain cache, and probably the highest relative to price.
Same thing with boats which can be incredibly expensive to own and operate, buy small or maybe mid-size up to for example 50k, and then go to boat shows and hang out on the big ones that cost to 300 to 500k to own and get it out of your system - same principal, get 90% of the benefit at 10% of the cost, and put the rest of the cash in the bank
If I had an expensive car, I don't know if I would want to take it out when visiting strip clubs or around town too much when going shopping. It's hard enough to keep scratches and dings away from any car and getting those on a real expensive one would really irritate me. Not that it doesn't irritate me when I see others treat other peoples cars like it means nothing more than a piece of paper they may write on. Open car doors straight into other people's cars, leaning up against them when they may have car keys scratching the sides or vandals putting scratches on them. If these people had to put in the hard time I would give them for vandalizing other peoples property, I bet many would change their tune. However I have one sister that didn't think it was any big deal if her young kids put a ding in my car from playing with a basketball right next to it. I quickly moved it. I don't believe in damaging somebody else's property and decreasing the value. Some people seem to enjoy doing that. Meanwhile others don't seem to care one way or the other. If I had an expensive car with all of the people who don't give a damn about how much damage they do to your car our there, I would probably only take joy rides in it. Since I don't have much time for that right now, it would be more like a collectible item. I guess you have to have lots of money to go along with it to not worry about others damaging it and simply replace it when things happen. I'm not really into say a Jag. I'd probably go with something more exotic and more prototype but fast and sleek. Maybe I would have a new car custom designed. hmmm, if I had that much money, I could hire this one guy I knew and have him build some new car designs. Maybe make one car for the rich for show and another to resell to major car manufacturers. Depends if I would want to work on running a business though. I was thinking I bet todays cars are terribly inefficient when trying to get the best combination of gas mileage combined with good looks and power. My dream car would be fusion powered with levitation technology and some other technology I haven't seen anywhere. Everything else seems just like something I'm getting by with for now. After rereading my post, it doesn't sound like I want a car, I want a spaceship. That would be fantastic if I could just hop in one and go visit a topless beach in Australia or somewhere for the evening instead of a strip club down the road and be back home at my regular time. Ok, it's late here and I guess I digressed off the topic just a little maybe. I guess I have as much a chance of getting some exotic technology like this as I do of stealing an alien spaceship. Oh well, we can always dream. Need to do that soon too. It's late.
"I'm not really into say a Jag. I'd probably go with something more exotic and more prototype but fast and sleek."
Having only owned a (non-exotic) american made convertible years back, one has to admit in early evenings when the weather is warm, these cars are amazing IF ONLY because women love them. However there is of course also a definite X factor with a convertible that is hard to quantify.
JAGS do have a history of high maintainence, however it terms of the what I would call the KICK/COST ratio - they are hard to beat, by "kick" I mean just the overall sports car vibe they give off. Porsche for example is a way better road car and better built car, but you won't find them cheap, and strangely enough they have become somewhat commonplace today, often don't even seem exotic.
The beauty of a used JAG that's imperfect is the fact that you don't have to worry about it that much, simply because the investment is very low, yet you get an exotic type of car and usually a minimally decent driving car.
Now as for the true high end italian sport cars, I've known only one person that did have a Lamborghini, and they can never be used like regular cars, and except for the super-rich perhaps, one will have to constantly worry about it, where they park it, who works on it, and insurance costs of course are out of sight, and prsent an entire series of specialized issues - but some do get great enjoyment out of these cars despite great cost and worry, and that's an intangible hard to value sometimes. At least unlike a (equivalent cost) boat or sailboat, you can put it in a garage safely every night, and you won't be at the mercy of hurricanes and storms
You have a car to get you to the dancers. Dancers over a new car anyday.