Car driving budget

[dzara]

Dear drivers,

Can anyone help me with how much I should be budgetting for car driving please? I have never owned a car and with the recent increase in fuel prices...etc I was wondering how much I should be allocating to that.

TIA

Not without more information ..... how far are you driving a week, is the car petrol, diesel, hybrid, electric? Insurance is impossible to guess, too many individual factors. Remember to add in mot, car tax and servicing.

An obviously impossible question as insurance/tax/fuel will be dependent on your particular car and travel requirements.

Somewhere between £20 and £1000 a month.

You need to give a lot more information to give any useful answers.

Insurance: you will obviously need this, but it will vary massively depending on whether you passed your test in 1995 or last week and if you’re driving a tiny Peugeot or a massive Lexus.

Do you own the car outright or are you paying monthly payments for it? That could be hundreds.

MOT: you don’t have to pay this for the first 3 years of owning a car, but then you do. The test itself isn’t generally expensive but as cars get older, more needs to be fixed.

Road Tax-this is much higher on a big old diesel, but might be free on a ULEZ friendly newer car.

Petrol: depends entirely on how much you drive. If it’s electric, you’ll need a charging point and to budget for the charging.

Breakdown cover-depends on what cover you want. Get home start cover as well, if your car is unreliable!

Exactly! It’s a bit like asking, ‘I want to move out of my parents’ house-how much will it cost?’

OK fair enough, but I haven't bought a car yet, am still considering options (ex. getting my own car or car sharing).
I need it to get around as public transport is unreliable, so daily driving but not long distances (or very rarely).
What is MOT? What car models are the most economical?

Haha, my bad! I have provided more detail above. Cheers.

Thanks for all the info!
I got my driving licence in 2008.
Not looking for a fancy car, just a reliable one to get about really.
And no electric car, they make me nervous.

getting my own car or car sharing

Well, obviously that will halve the cost if you share it completely with someone else! Do you have someone prepared to do that?

Do you have money saved to buy one outright?

Have you ever had insurance before-any no claims discounts?I’d look at cars in the cheap insurance bracket-Aygo, Up etc

MOT is the yearly check to make sure your car is roadworthy.

Petrol could be £50-£80 to fill up the tank and it lasts a month or so. This massively depends on how far you go and how often.

I'd rather use the money for other things to be honest, I can only afford a no frills second hand car but I am worried about potential maintenance costs for used cars.

For car sharing, I meant using websites which connect people who want to car share not actually splitting the purchase price between two.

So associated costs are if I understood correctly:

• Insurance (how much yearly on average for a basic car?)
• MOT if car is 3 years or older
• Road tax (depends on if it's ULEZ friendly)
• Fuel costs obviously

No one can give you quotes for insurance, depends on your age, how long youve been driving, any points on license and your postcode, whether you go 3rd party or fully comprehensive.
Almost all cars will be liable for road tax, the amount depends on your cars emissions. The price is set into price bands. I think you need to determine your budget and look on autotrader to see what you can afford. You can do insurance quotes from the cars number plates. Be aware that used car prices have shot up.

Insurance depends on car make/model, driver age/experience, employment, car's use (just social/domestic, commuting or travel for work), where you live and where the car's kept overnight. If all of those are in normal range say £300-750.

MoT is an annual safety test. Full fee is set at around £55 but lots of places discount it as they'll then be at the front of the queue if it needs repairs.

Way too many folks think the MoT is the only time/cost associated with garages. Actually most cars, or at least those running on petrol or diesel need a regular oil change and other bits seeing to - say £250-500/yr.

Fuel is sold by litres but in the UK we think of miles per gallon. At 40 mpg 6000 miles will cost around £1000.

Say around £2000 per annum excluding the cost of buying the car and providing for its replacement...

Obviously not a weekly cost, but be prepared for repairs. Our car has just failed it's first MOT and the replacement part is going to cost over £200. There's another part which doesn't need replacing now, but the garage estimate could cost £500+ when it goes.

My car is a little shopper run about and it's very economical.

It depreciates about £85 a month ish (£1,000) a year so factor depreciation into calculations.

It costs me £37 a month to insure.

£28 a month for service, MOT and tyres

And £50 a month in fuel as I wfh and pop to the shops twice a week.

And it's road tax exempt so I don't pay that.

So completely it's £200ish a month to run in its entirety.

To be honest it would be much cheaper for me to catch a train or bus but I like the freedom of being able to see friends and go to the tip, shop in places other than main train lines.

I have a small car which is nearly 10 years old and done about £65k. I did buy it second hand about 6 years ago. Not outright but i have now paid off the loan.

Monthly costs

I use about £80 petrol mainly round town and ferrying my teenagers but do go on day trips and drive about 600 miles a month on average.

I put by £35 a-month for servicing and other repairs like sometimes I have to get a new tyre mid year. I also belong to a membership thing at the garage where they give you a free mot with an annual service. The things checked in a service are not the same as a MOT. If something bigger needs doing it will be more money on top of this. Eg brake pads, new exhaust or clutch.

Car tax is just over £13 a month.

I have recently for the first time in ages paid the insurance in one go as they wanted £100 more for the year to pay monthly.

And although it has left me short it will save me money in the long run. insurance is just over £400 for the year. Plus full breakdown cover on top. Was additional 80 something.

My insurance this year has gone from £700 ish to £1600. Nothing has changed except an extra year no claim 😭

I’ve seen so many people say this in the last few months on Twitter/Facebook. I wonder why?!

Mine is usually about £350 but I’ve been driving a long time. DS’s first insurance as a 20 something year old was £1200 with a black box and has barely gone down in 4 years despite having no accidents. Am dreading renewal time!

Mine had a phase of dropping £100 a year, then around 5 years ago slowly increasing. A new car 18 months ago and my insurance jumped up £200 for the year, this time it’s £900 more. I have never made a claim or ever had any points. I need to decide whether to pay in full and use the difference from savings, or to go monthly. I have two weeks to decide. That along with other rising costs has meant we need to find around £600 per month extra. Not including sending money to DS who leaves for uni in a couple of weeks.

I believe it’s something to do with rising costs of current claims, longer waiting times for parts meaning replace my hire cars being needed for longer, I don’t really know. It makes me sad.

Thanks all.
It's very expensive! Plus all the hassle if it breaks down or something. I wonder if I won't be better off using Uber or another carshare app! Or renting a car if I need to go on a weekend trip or something.

Maybe all these taxes are to discourage us from using cars?