To get a car

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With my finances, am I being unreasonable to want a car?

I live in an expensive city centre and can realistically walk or get public transport. I take home ~£2300 after deductions. I have expensive bills. My salary has fluctuated recently and bills have increased, I have around £600-800 left after bills.

I work from home and am at the office twice a week which is a 15-20 minute walk.

I have never owned a car before so I’m not sure what realistic running costs are. Additionally due to location, there’s daily ULEZ/clean air zone charges. I don’t have designated parking - street parking requires a resident permit of £300 per year. Insurance might be higher due to location.

I suppose I don’t need a car but it would be nice to have!

Running costs will depend on what you buy. In your position it doesn't seem necessary to be spending a lot on buying / financing a car you'll barely use

What benefit will having a car give you? It sounds you would only have occasional use. If so, could you join a car sharing group and only pay & use it as needed. Cars always have unexpected costs cropping up - insurances, tyres, servicing, petrol/diesel getting more & more expensive.

I didn’t know there were car sharing groups!

The benefits are little things like boot space for awkward/large/heavy items that I can’t buy as no easy way to transport home. This includes grocery shopping, sometimes I’ll do little trips across the week as I can’t physically carry a full shop. Albeit online shopping exists…

not having a car just restricts spontaneity eg travelling to different cities, being out and about at night and worrying about safety, having to get the last train home, public transport delays, not easily being able to go to medical appointments that are further afield, not being as social sometimes

I’m heavily reliant on Uber and could probably invest the money I spend there on an actual car at this point.

Sounds like owning a car will be a hinderance overall.

You have the cost of the car itself
Plus tax, insurance, MOT, servicing, parking permit, breakdown cover
You don't need the car for work
You don't have a dedicated space to park it and will need to pay a ULEZ charge every time you move it (unless it's exempt, which many are). Will you actually be able to park near your home or will you face having to drive around to find a space and then still have a walk to get home?

I run probably the cheapest car possible for low mileage and while its good for transport, getting grocery shopping etc, its no good for larger items - I couldn't get large flatpack furniture items in it for example. The fixed costs are probably at least £60 pm averaged out plus you have the cost of buying the car itself and petrol obviously. Including these, it's probably more like £200 pm.

Definitely get your groceries delivered and investigate car clubs. How many times a month would you say you would like to use a car for the things you mention?

I was going to say No it’s not worth it, but in your second post you said you use a lot of Ubers.
maybe you could get some good use out of a small car. However bear in mind car ownership will keep getting more expensive and will make you lazy- it’s like a drug

Or you can hire cars as a one off, and DIY/furniture stores often do short duration hire vans to take your purchases home.

Or for occasional trips like this, is there a close friend or family member if they would be willing to take you, you could pay them petrol money plus buy them lunch or coffee and cake while out to thank them?

Obviously there's a fine line here between reasonable and cheeky fucker territory but it depends on your relationship, how much time they have available and how often. Eg my DM doesn't have a car, but DSis and I are happy taking her places, DSis probably once or twice a week as she works PT and has a lot of free time during the 'normal' working day, me probably once a month as I have less time but will go further afield to places DSis isn't confident driving to.

Look up Zipcar. I don't know the finer details but a friend in a similar situation to you was raving about this a few months ago.