well that car has a salvage title. in my area the equivalent ($8K) gets you a 2009 with 70K miles, which is probably totally fine, but just saying that the car you posted has a salvage title discount.
But I'm not going to argue with you that leasing is a cheap way of owning a car (because it isn't).
it may be a reasonable semi-moustachian alternative for my current life situation though. $4K / yr (75 parking, 70 insurance, $200 of depreciation) total of car costs is about what it'd be if I uberpooled to/from work every day. going the "beater" (8 yr old fit isn't a beater, but you get my point) route may reduce that $200 to say $80/ month ($1000 a yr). At this time, the incremental $120 / month isn't worth it to me. (I'd rather eat out 1 less time / month). the bimmer has depreciated by about $480 / month ($36->$10K) over its ownership (though $148/month for me because of parental teat sucking since they paid for 1/2), so locking something in at $200 (hopefully less) has its appeal.
The real savings would come from moving next to my work and getting rid of a car completely but that's not happening for now. Neither DW nor I want to live near either place she works for crime/quality of life reasons (also she works two places that are 30 mins apart). Her place of work is "safer than 17% of cities" to put a little objective stats to it. it's objectively dicey.
1. That $129/mo. would more than double what you had left over to save last month. 50%+ improvement isn't "worth it"?
2. You'd rather eat out one less time per month. Except you haven't done that and you won't do that, because as you yourself have identified, this is your social hour.
3. You do not yet know what you actually can afford, because every month you are still "surprised" by new expenses -- every month, you start out with grand plans; and every month, the money is gone by the end of it because of something else you didn't anticipate. In the real world, every dollar matters when your outflow equals your income.
4. Sure, you can rationalize the lease as cheaper than your current depreciation loss on the Beemer, but that won't improve your cash flow. In the past few months, you have gone from spending @$300 more than you make every month to having $250 left last month. You now want to commit to additional debt that will suck up more than half of your leftover cash (assuming that the +$250 is a "real" change and not just a monthly blip). This is two steps forward, one step back.
4.a. You are not even making this trade-off for an asset. You are forfeiting half of the leftover cash you worked for months to find, just for the "experience" of borrowing someone else's car for a few years.
4.b. You live/drive in a city. The spanky new car is going to get dinged, and you will pay more to cover the damage when you turn it in.
5. The proper comparison is also not to how much Ubering to work would cost. It is to how much biking would cost. Yes, yes, your pretty trail is closed. But you still have streets. You can do it, even if you don't want to. The baseline cost of what you actually
need is $0.
6. Don't kid yourself. You like the idea of a lease because then you won't be stuck with a cheap car after the lease ends. By then, your DW will be out of school and into her well-paid career, and you can upgrade again to a fancy car. Right? Tell me that's not what was running through your mind. I would put money on that.
This is not a wise fiscal decision. This is not semi-mustachian. This is your spendypants bad angel trying everything it can to avoid doing what you know you need to do, while easing your conscience because it is "only" a Fit, which is of course beneath your awesome deserved place in the world.
I was sympathetic on the prior post; when you feel like you are trying so hard, you do all this cooking and shopping and planning, and then you find you didn't really save much, because more eating at home = higher groceries, and you still had lots of fancy dinners out with friends, etc. etc. etc. I was going to say something like, hey, this is a marathon, not a sprint, you're building better habits, you've identified a weakness so now you can figure out how to address it, etc.
But what you've been telling us is how your DW loves the apartment, how she loves to eat out, how she loves to get her hair and nails done, and all that, and how you're working hard to save where you can by taking over more shopping and planning and cooking and all of that. But now comes the first decision that you can make, truly 100% on your own, and you are rationalizing
a fucking brand-new car. That you're not even going to own. FFS. Look hard at yourself. Think about how much you are willing to commit to changing the way you think and act, or if you just want to find a way to stand pat for a few years until your DW's fabulous new salary solves all your problems for you.*
You are smarter than this. You are better than this. You know you don't need a car at all. So if you are going to get one, suck it up and get a fucking beater.
*Please read irony font here. You have already demonstrated that you know higher income just gets sucked up by more expensive "needs" if you don't change your mindset.