Affording a car?

[Smurfgirl]

I have worked out how much me and DP have a month and its actually more than I thought.

Basically after ALL our bills are paid (council tax, sky, internet, elec&gas, morgage, phone etc) and we save (£200 a month) we should have about £400 'spare cash' to basically spend on whatever we want. Do you think we can afford a car out of that? I am desperate for one because I find it quite restrictive only really being able to travel around the city centre.

Insurance for the 2 of us would be about £600.

I would think so

Pensions ??

Rainy day funds ??

A car will cost the following

Insurance

Petrol natch.

Tax

MOTs

Tyres

Maintenance etc.,

save up for four or five months and buy an old car. save a bit more for when it needs all kinds of bits replacing.

We bought a P-reg Honda Civic for a grand at Christmas (min book value is £1300). It needed £600-worth of stuff doing to it when it failed its MOT , but apart from that has been fine.

In hindsight we should have made the garage who sold it to us do an MOT, but it wasn't due for another couple of months.

That includes pension LGJ, £200 is rainy day fund. In 2ish years our income will triple.

Its the upkeep I am worried about. Hmm.

We run a little N reg polo on 35 quid a week. £20 quid petrol, £5 tax and £5 insurance and £5 mot/repairs.
I put the money for tax/mot in an envelope and dig in it as needed.
Car cost £900 ages ago, passed one MOT no problem, needs brakes done now before going through another.

Smurf

Not worthy..... you are very organised.

In that case I would give it a try.

Have you thought about one of those 3 year lease deals? My friend has a corsa and pays about £200 pm, which covers insurance and maintenance.

Ignore lease.................it is never ever yours.

nooooooo! don't buy a car you can't afford.

LGJ is right - you'd be hiring the car, not owning it.

Hiya SG.

I like that you post on MN, you know.

I'd say get a safe, not-that-old-but-old-enough-not-to-be-a-fortune runaround. And enjoy your freedom!

Good timing. My lovely 19 year old bought her first car this week and drove it off to university today for her second year so we've had lots of discussions about car costs etc. So I think she's followed the advice here - bought outright, nothing too expensive. Don't lease one as you pay too much. But the costs you set out look fine. Go for it.

I'd shove money away as fast as I could to buy it outright

if you don't actually need it yet it's going to be much cheaper to buy it cash than to take out a HP deal

You can get a newish one for about £200 a month on the hire purchase scheme thing. You own it at the end of the period agreed I thought?

I had enough cash saved up to buy mine outright. Didn't want anything too old though as you run the risk of too many problems, MOT failure etc. If you buy through a dealer it may be more expensive but with mine I got 3 year warranty even though it was already 3 years old.

All I really spend on mine regularly is petrol & screenwash.

The main expense are tax, insurance & servicing/mot costs & any unexpected problems.

you do own it but if you add up all the payments including the final payment they add up to wwaaaaay wwaaay wwwwwaaay more than the purchase price

Yeah. A guy in a garage tried to tell me that you it could work out cheaper to buy it on finance. I was like so you're telling me that you loan people money for absolutely nothing over 5 years! Later on he found out that I was an accountant & then shut up on the whole finance spiel! obviously thought I was a stupid blonde bimbo as he tried to convince me one car had central locking when I SAW him reach over & lock the door on the passenger side of the car!!!!