“I am a quite down-to-earth fresh grad from NUS (guy) and I have a girlfriend who is quite materialistic (eg. want nice clothes, bag, shoes, big condo etc). I really love her and I understand that different people have different flaw and I am willing to accept her for who she is. Hence, I am trying my best to accommodate her wants whenever possible.
An interesting conversation happened recently and I hope to seek genuine advice. We are planning for our future together and she told me that she definitely want a luxury car in future (BMW, mercedes, Audi etc ). I told her that a car is a depreciating asset and given the high COE price, I feel we should just get an ordinary car (Honda, Toyota) because the primary function of a car is for convenience and transport. When I said these, she became upset instantly. I tried to convince her that the prestige and status of a luxury car is superficial and we can spend the money better to areas such as our child education, insurance or even retirement fund etc.
Instead of being convinced by my points, she countered my argument with a very tricky answer. She said that she want a luxury car not because of the prestige or status but rather its safety. Then she started to talk about how dangerous it is to drive on the road, how she care about me and our future kid’s life etc. She denied that she want a luxury car to show off. She just value our lives alot because she love me. Luxury cars have better safety mechanics and the steel used is strong (ie. wont be less crushed even if get into an accident). She said my life is priceless and she wants to buy a luxury car to protect us from traffic accident and hence the money is worth spending.
Given that I have known her for so long, I am pretty confident (99% confidence interval) that she just want a luxury car to show off but know that it is wrong. Hence, she is reframing in such a way that she cares more about my life.
My best attempt to counter her is that I told her “then you should get a tank right? it’s the safest.” However, given that she knows that we definitely cannot get a tank, she just play along and said “yes i will get it if it is on sale because it is so safe.” I am dam sure she won’t get it even tanks are really available for sale but I cannot prove it.
I really feel that in the current society, people start to condone materialism more and more. Hence, it is not viable for luxury car companies to market their cars solely based on prestige and status. Hence, they are coming up with a new tactic called safety to jack up the price of their car.
But anyway, hope that some smart people can give me some advice on how to resolve this issue? Any car guru around? Is it really true that there is no cheap and safe car?”