0067 — Roast Beef in, An Unexpected Check
Added 2024-05-31 17:00:10 +0000 UTCOuttakes at noon, in Author's Tier / In-Universe Tier!
I'd been trying to write this idea — the idea that growing up without much money creates various pathologies around the reality of eventually having money — from a completely different angle, but then this strip fell into my lap while I was walking from the pillow to the toothbrush last Tuesday morning.
Every time I consider upgrading from my lame little hatchback that has no power and is generic, I go through a several-day process in which I ultimately consider the proposition existentially futile. I don't drive that much, I no longer think strangers give a shit about what I'm driving, the cost doesn't come anywhere close to the value, I don't have patience for the dealership ritual, etc. So, here I am, driving around a cheap Subaru with a broken ceiling fan and a disabled gas augur in the back (on a flattened Frito-Lay cardboard box from Restaurant Depot; the rear seats are down).
(I should note that the broken ceiling fan is laying on the bed, and not actually a strange dealer add-on that is attached to the ceiling.)
Comments
Agreed, though with Ray I think it's more that he's never worried a day in his life about something as trivial as "how much a car costs." On the other end of the spectrum, Lyle doesn't understand the concept of doing anything other than buying four Datsun 280Zs from a scrapyard and wrenching them into a single functional car. Mr. Bear on a good day will keep your average car dealer well in hand with the steely look and the sharp phrase, but his British nature will inevitably lead him to fix on a car that will have three important systems malfunction the second it gets off the lot. Much as I hate to remind people of bad SNL movies... it's Pat. Which goes a long way to explaining why Beef would rather just get rolled by the dealer and feel bad about it the rest of his life.
Douglas Wykstra
2024-06-09 03:45:24 +0000 UTCSo then who's the right friend to help Beef with this? Definitely not Ray... he's gonna get flattered and rolled by any salesperson. And we've recently seen how big a sucker Teo is.
AzureSP
2024-06-09 00:44:24 +0000 UTCI love car shopping but the sales reps always size me up and walk away. That's why I am forced to rely on private party sales.
George Cordes
2024-06-02 17:04:27 +0000 UTCThis right here is the play.
Corrine Bredin
2024-06-02 15:19:04 +0000 UTCAnyone who feels the way Roast Beef feels about buying a car, canvass your friends and inform them of your insecurity. There's likely to be at least one hard-charger among them who will happily accompany you to the dealership and treat the dealer like a local politician who just tried to go through airport security with a brick of heroin in his carry-on. It's no big deal to the friend; confrontation is how he gets his blood pumping on the weekends and you just spared him an afternoon of trolling Twitter and/or trying to strongarm a fast food employee into giving him a free upsize. He is not the best person, but he is your friend, and he's going to get you a good deal on a car. The only downside is that he will force you to walk off the lot at least once.
Douglas Wykstra
2024-06-02 07:12:32 +0000 UTCJust keep buying that Vanguard Total Stock Index until your balance hits six figures, then it's worth going to check with somebody about diversifying. Index fund is basically just an inflation-proof* savings account with the lowest fees you'll find anywhere. *It's not stagflation-proof, but that's a much less usual thing to happen.
Douglas Wykstra
2024-06-02 07:02:52 +0000 UTCA few years back I was talking to my brother's next door neighbor. The guy lived in a very comfortably-sized house, had an Audi S8 in the driveway, and had just ridden up on a nice BMW cross-country motorcycle. I mentioned that I had been eyeing an older BWW bike for a while but it was hard to justify the cost for what was basically a toy for me. He chuckled and said, 'well this is just to get me to the local airport' where he had a private plane that he'd just flown back from visiting his brother a couple hundred miles away. He said, 'I grew up dirt-poor and was really frugal like that for a long time, until at some point after moving up the career ladder I realized that I had gotten to a point where I won't have to worry about money anymore. So now I have toys.' The thing that struck me about the conversation wasn't his nice array of toys but that it had never once in my life crossed my mind that there was a state of consciousness of 'not having to worry about money anymore'.
Brerlapn
2024-06-01 18:20:19 +0000 UTCI have a rusted out 77 Datsun pickup for odd jobs. Every man seems to consider it an obligatory mark of masculine acknowledgement to ask it’s for sale.
Chris Onstad
2024-06-01 17:20:11 +0000 UTCbtw I have a old Toyota Tacoma with rust on the body & mold on the camper shell. But everywhere I go, guys ask if I want to sell it. Like having a status object for for people I respect.
Erik Chipchase
2024-06-01 16:02:50 +0000 UTCDang! This hits a nerve!
Erik Chipchase
2024-06-01 15:59:10 +0000 UTCthe best way to buy a car you don't need and can't afford is on that sweet sweet credit. what's the worst that could happen???
Datura
2024-06-01 06:19:03 +0000 UTCYou just want him to win, but also understand his choices.
Alexander Rediger
2024-05-31 22:43:23 +0000 UTCKeep the Subaru as long as it'll run. Modern cars are assembled by poorly supervised children out of an amalgam of recycled iPhones.
Earl Hickey
2024-05-31 22:31:54 +0000 UTC"Dear Onstad, please stop giving Wall Street new ideas for terrible financial derivatives products that will surely destroy the economy worse than a handful of companies shitting the bed with the lights on. Sincerely, the American working class"
2scrogz
2024-05-31 22:08:54 +0000 UTC"...floating-point APR chaos-blend annuity balloons... WAIT THAT'S FUCKING GENIUS!!!" -some coked-out, entry-level trader at a hedge fund, whose money - which is actually somebody else's money - is about to be "away from them," probably, about 6-12 months before becoming "seriously dong-razzled."
2scrogz
2024-05-31 22:04:49 +0000 UTCLeading to brain struggles of their own
Jacquelyn R Walters
2024-05-31 20:43:34 +0000 UTCone thing about being poor for most of your life is that when you have money you tend to spend it in a big hurry on stupid shit as though it's going to somehow catch on fire if you don't do this. I now work a job that pays me more than I've ever made in my life and I still managed to outspend my check.
J Hardy Carroll
2024-05-31 20:21:55 +0000 UTCA couple of years back in...I want to say 22 I was on the hunt for a Ridgeline, and a local dealership had a lightly used '19 with less than 17k miles on it. Knowing how batshit insane the market was at the time I went in, look at it, took it for a test drive, and asked what the asking was. He flipped his monitor around and pointed at the listing on autotrader "plus doc fees and tax, doc fees will be $800". Listing was a bit less than what KBB claimed it should be so I took it. Oddly, it was the absolute best experience I had ever had buying a car. While we were waiting around the salesman who looked like a Hispanic George Clooney was pointing at a total of five vehicles out front "those are the only new vehicles we got that are not allocated to people who ordered them. There really are people who will come in and insist on buying a Telluride right off the lot and with the way surcharges are going with those and how they often have crappy credit, they probably end up spending north 100 large on one by the time it's paid off." He reiterated that people who ordered from them got MSRP or a bit under MSRP, and they had been fairly surprised anyone came in for the Ridgeline, which surprised ME because I think that's about all the truck you need. That's it that's the story the end no moral
GruntyGinMan
2024-05-31 19:39:33 +0000 UTCI was going to say that Beef should consult the scratch-havers in his life for advice, but that would lead him to Ray. Though I suppose Beef could still extract useful advice in the form of "do the opposite of what Ray says."
Oppido
2024-05-31 19:24:36 +0000 UTC"Nobody in my family knew why they called it benjamins" is a very good and memorable line.
Eli Parker
2024-05-31 19:08:11 +0000 UTCwhile my ship hasnt come in i am approaching comfort for the first time in my life financially speaking also for the first time in my life not coincidentally a major auto manufacturer is starting assembly on a new vehicle built to my specification next week ive never had a new car before its quite possible i may never make that multi thousand dollar drive off a lot ever again because fuuuuuuck that immediate depreciation noise but i had to do it at least once also if i can keep dumping money into it at the rate i have been toward the down payment the bank is going to get hilariously little interest out of me
Zen Window
2024-05-31 19:07:59 +0000 UTCFor most people, buying a car is as much an impulse purchase as having a child. Sometimes with the same ramifications.
bird
2024-05-31 19:01:14 +0000 UTCToo real. I got a decent chunk of unnecessary money for the first time in my life some years back and had to ask some generational-wealth-having friends, "What should I... uh... do with this" and I learned a lot, including about index funds, starting with the knowledge that there are things called index funds
Tim Pratt
2024-05-31 18:54:43 +0000 UTCMy wife and I were going to buy a new car a few weeks ago and I wondered aloud whether any car salesmen were women these days, because I also was in absolute terror of some 30 year old putting green Sinatra fan and his Jimmy Johns detritus. We arrived at the dealership and the first person to approach us was straight up a polite young woman with zero MAGA energy. I manifested that shit! Anyway, it still took three goddamned days to buy a car even though we knew the one that we wanted.
Nicholas Williams
2024-05-31 18:35:35 +0000 UTCThere's a Mad Men line that stayed with me. Betty (grew up wealthy) says to Don (grew up poor and tried to hide his past): "I see how you are with money. You don't understand it." This was around the time we saw he had a desk drawer full of large bills.
Ryan Boyle
2024-05-31 18:33:18 +0000 UTCWhere I am it's Friday evening and that's already the weekend.
Matthew Harris
2024-05-31 18:32:03 +0000 UTCI keep so many boxes and bags and junk
Jonathan
2024-05-31 18:31:40 +0000 UTCAlso a "social anxiety" thing, but the book I'm reading suggests that they are kind of the same disease.
Jonathan
2024-05-31 18:31:01 +0000 UTCI was scared of all this, so I just went to Hertz and bought a no-haggle used rental car, and it's been completely fine for the 6 years I've owned it.
Jonathan
2024-05-31 18:27:03 +0000 UTCCar ceiling fan is a hella good idea though
Michael Akey
2024-05-31 18:26:48 +0000 UTCHell is kind of a weird place
b.zap
2024-05-31 18:11:58 +0000 UTCOnion odor is automatic buyer leverage, weird but true
Chris Onstad
2024-05-31 18:10:27 +0000 UTCAs a cartoonist, this is a very affordable technique
Chris Onstad
2024-05-31 18:09:12 +0000 UTCSo so good. I feel ya Beef
Ismini Roller
2024-05-31 18:05:56 +0000 UTCI hope David Lynch has a ceiling fan in his car (with enough clearance that it doesn’t chop his hair off of course)
Nicholas Joliat
2024-05-31 18:00:09 +0000 UTCI just want to note that I really like the background shading in the final panels mirroring Beef's descent into Chagrin.
Oppido
2024-05-31 17:54:15 +0000 UTCI think there’s a generation gap, my thought is, “I wouldn’t buy a car now because I don’t want one more bill”, versus my 80-year-old neighbor, who casually mentions that she paid in cash for her condominium.
A. Hamster
2024-05-31 17:53:19 +0000 UTCSomething I experienced at a "professional" job, co-workers talking casually about past expenditures and foreign vacations in their youth that were just downright alien to my latchkey childhood. You never feel at home around these people, they may as well be another species.
Jeremy Wright
2024-05-31 17:52:46 +0000 UTCSee, that's exactly what I did when I bought my car--found the EXACT vehicle, went to the dealership, drove around a bit in it, and the guy STILL tried to scuzz me on it.
Don Rowe
2024-05-31 17:49:21 +0000 UTCStill, though, I would have found out if “quack like a duck” was on the table
A. Hamster
2024-05-31 17:45:51 +0000 UTCIn the late 60s, automotive ceiling fans were briefly the rage, until the driver kept getting clipped in the back of the head
Chris Onstad
2024-05-31 17:43:07 +0000 UTCI guess it would be more like voles, but rats was more lyrical
Chris Onstad
2024-05-31 17:42:36 +0000 UTCall keeping boxes cause they're the good kind and I'll use em later maybe
Josh Egbert
2024-05-31 17:42:01 +0000 UTCWhen the salesman stifles a burp but you can still smell the onions from his Jersey Mike's Italian lunch.
Julie (HiDeeHoGal)
2024-05-31 17:41:50 +0000 UTCThat's not the only way to face a situation? Tell me more...
Chris Onstad
2024-05-31 17:41:14 +0000 UTCOh man hurts
TacoAvenger
2024-05-31 17:40:43 +0000 UTCall cutting the toothpaste tube open to get the rest
Chris Onstad
2024-05-31 17:40:39 +0000 UTCMy immediate thought too. I might spend or even invest what money I have now wisely, but I still dither over big brand vs store brand snacks.
Julie (HiDeeHoGal)
2024-05-31 17:40:22 +0000 UTCenter, a lame little Subaru hatch back, forever
Chris Onstad
2024-05-31 17:40:17 +0000 UTCI think there's some handsome overlap, but I don't think you or I really need to electively plumb those depths, given that it's nearly the weekend.
Chris Onstad
2024-05-31 17:39:44 +0000 UTCI figured out the ceiling fan thing, but it did take a second.
Mrbimbin
2024-05-31 17:38:18 +0000 UTCThank you for explaining about the broken ceiling fan. It's been a long week and my brain was struggling with that concept!
Jacquelyn R Walters
2024-05-31 17:29:14 +0000 UTCAh yes, the 'rats on the neck at buried alive sleep away camp' feeling. I remember it from my childhood like it was yesterday morning...
Walter Cooke
2024-05-31 17:18:33 +0000 UTCExtremely relatable; Reflexively delving into/outright inventing the downsides of a positive situation is a brain-scramble I cook up on the regular.
EndgamerAzari
2024-05-31 17:16:08 +0000 UTCWhen my husband and I bought our first new-to-us car together, we only went to the dealership once we knew exactly what we wanted, knew the price, had our money ready, so we took one test drive and went “yeah we’ll take it” The salesmen were obviously pleased but also seemed disappointed they didn’t have to ask what they had to do to put us in this Subaru today
Elyse
2024-05-31 17:12:56 +0000 UTCOoooofffff. Hard identify, Beefo.
Daniel Pearson
2024-05-31 17:09:53 +0000 UTCIf you were a poor kid who *knew* you were a poor kid, there's no amount of money in the world that will ever change that feeling about yourself.
Josh Egbert
2024-05-31 17:09:32 +0000 UTCCar shopping is a fuck you friday, everyday
Rob Satterfield
2024-05-31 17:07:28 +0000 UTCI feel like this is more of a "the depression" thing than a "never having money and not understanding the world of people who have" thing, but then both conditions also apply to me so I don't really have any way of knowing
Matthew Harris
2024-05-31 17:06:39 +0000 UTC
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