If you’re about to spit out a child and deliver just what humanity needs - a higher population count - yessssss! - buying an SUV is seen (by many) as the price of admission to Club Breeder. Keep watching, though, because this report will save you $5-$10k.

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This is all one question, but I get a hundred different flavours of this every month, so split it up into chunks, the better to slice and dice it once and for all. 

"I need some help! We're about to have a baby and it's time to upgrade the wife's car (currently a VW Golf GTi) and get her something bigger and safer. I've been watching a lot of John's videos to narrow down the options. We want something new-ish (dealer demo or very low Ks). The wife is a tech-savvy car enthusiast who likes her cars to have a sporty feel/performance. She's also big into design and branding so looks (interior and exterior) play a big part. She's big on sunroofs (panoramic a bonus). She wants boot space (pram/shopping/suitcase). The upper limit of my budget is around $35K. I'm not really much of a car/brand man, so I just want bang for buck around a time where we're going down to one income and we can better use the money elsewhere."

How unlike a woman to want it all, despite racing up to a cliff of impending financial constraint…

So let’s weigh this up in the domain of objective facts: $35k is insufficient for a new/demo sporty, hi-tech, fully loaded, panoramic sunroofed SUV that’s objectively larger than a Golf (which is really a conventional ’small car’ segment entry like a Kia Cerato, Hyundai i30 or Corolla/Mazda3, etc). It’s a complete industry misnomer because the so-designated ‘small’ cars really are not that small.

Back to the demands of the sunroof-infatuated car-nut brand snob wife: Medium to large SUVs under $100k are not going to be as sporty as a Golf GTI. Obvious conclusion: It’s time to compromise.

Fact: The Golf and all other cars in this segment are large enough for a baby capsule, a pram, a suitcase and shopping. Especially as the rear seat split-folds. Cars in this segment are also quite safe. 

My advice is: Get a pram and some shopping bags, and a suitcase, and experiment with the Golf. Leave the kerbside rear seat up (because you want to be taking your kid out of the car on the kerbside, for safety) and fold the other part of the rear seat down. Guess what? All that baby-related crap fits - without leaving the baby compromised.

So I’m really not seeing an objective reason to upgrade, beyond just a personal preference to join the ‘I spat out a baby and bought an SUV’ club. 

Do remember: a nice, sporty SUV with all the toys - like a Tucson Highlander or a CX-5 Akera - is going to be around $50k. And that’s $15,000 more than you want to spend, on the cusp of sucking it up financially and going down to one income, at the same time as bringing a money-sucking diminutive human home from hospital.