would buying a smaller car REALLY help me?

angelfire

Hi, further to my earlier thread about my debt situation, I wonder if anyone can help me settle an ongoing squabble I have with my partner re moneysaving:

We bought my car, a mondeo 1.8 x reg but new shape two years ago, we paid £4250 and i'd say it's now worth about £3000.

he, as part of his job, is required to have a car less than 3 years old and it's time to change. He's getting a mazda6 - fine. but with this in mind I'm thinking that two big cars in the house is a bit unnecessary - both will have high tax, insurance, petrol costs etc. So I was hoping to change mine to something like a focus (we have a 13month and an 11 year old). He's saying that it'll cost us to change mine and what we'd save on running costs etc it wouldn't be worth it.

i'm really not sure if he's right. i'm anxious to get our outgoings down to the minimum before I approach payplan or similar about my debts. Dioes anyone have any advice?

Emmzi

http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/running_costs/index.html

This will give you a guide to running costs of your current car vs what you might be buying. Hope it helps you have a data-based discussion!

Spendless

What is your car used for? Do you work for example, or need to make motorway journeys in it. We have a similar situation re cars. DH has a company car with petrol included, so that is our family car, used for trips, holidays,weekends,visiting family, shopping. Mine is just an old car (cost £1000 3 years ago) doesn't cost much in tax and insurance and is used for taking DD to nursery and me to college, kids swimming lessons and if elderly nan needs to go anywhere during day-time in week

lynzpower

Agree with Spendless, cant you get a fiesta or something even smaller. My mum used to have one and until I wrote the blighter off it was fighting on and it was a c reg, and passed its MOT only needing new tyres. Perfect for little errands, if you really need a car, the smaller the better IMHO. Cheaper to insure ( whos gonna bother pinching it? ) Same with Skodas I believe v cheap to insure cos of this.

My local car lot has a little fiat for 179 quid the other day, dont know how good it is but came with a 6 month warranty!!

angelfire

my car is mainly used for getting to work, baby to nursery and older child to gymnastics etc - all within a three mile radius! The reason we bought it in the first place was because my partner has a smaller car and it was used as the main car for holidays, motorway travel etc. now that he's getting a large car I'm thinking something smaller will be more suitable, but it's the cost to change versus what we'd actually save thats causing the argument cos we couldn't just swap one for another - my partner always insists on low as possible mileage for year which of course is fair enough.

I also put some emphasis on the safety - my Mondeo for example is much much safer than the Ford Ka (one of which is currently advertised on the grabbit thread!) this is why I was looking at the focus, as it's a decent workhorse, big enough boot, comes with five doors, safer than something like a ka and from my point of view, easier to park! my partner's argument is that the difference between the running costs of the focus and those of the mondeo wouldn't be different enough to warrant changing.