2014 Frugal Living Challenge

cw18

Just bear in mind that if you go more than a year without car insurance you lose your NCD - or that's what I was told when we looked at dropping to 1 car between me and my (now late) hubby about 9 years ago. We'd have had to alternate insurance years, so if we needed 2 cars again (or when one of us passed away) the other still had full NCD rather than very expensive premiums to pay while building it back up.

My car is one of the "luxury items" I may have to give up in the future (no idea how I'll afford a replacement when it dies on me, and it's 12 years old now), but as it's really the only viable way of getting to family in an emergency (especially late evenings / overnight / Sundays) - and given the insurance issue - I'm hanging on to is as long as I can. Costs are being helped out with a bit now DS1 is on the insurance (he pays the extra for being on it) and paying a mileage charge (petrol plus something towards repairs), and I wasn't using it much which can do as much damage as high mileage so his use of it also helps with that

Bobarella

That's interesting Cheryl. I will look into it.

Frugalsod

I do not have a car but really do not need one. I managed to get most my shopping online or locally so can walk to the village stores. If for any reason I need to drive somewhere I can always hire a car, which has not really been necessary most of the time. Next year I will get a bicycle as once you have bought everything your bills are very low especially if you can maintain it all yourself. It all depends on your needs. When I was living and working in London it made the trip to work so much simpler. The tube journey could take an hour and a half each way and cycling meant I could get to work in less than 30 minutes. Which meant an extra hour in bed!

Frugaldom

Interesting and entirely relevant conversation on cars Bobarella. Mine died a couple of years ago and it has not been replaced. Being self-employed, previos nsurance policiies had benn commercial and they don't have no claims... so I had nothing to lose. I live 3.5 miles from the village, 16 miles from the Frugaldom Project and over 20 miles from town but work from home. There is no public transport here, so we bought secondhand bikes. I can honestly say that I haven't missed the car. For emergencies, £40 for a taxi is much less than the thousands involved in buying and keeping a decent car on the road. I did run a price check for new insurance policy and now consider the whole no claims discount a marketing ploy... the quotes given were all around the £150/yr for fully comp. (I have a clean licence & been driving since 17) Personally, I am considering never replacing the car. If things get complicated, I will move house to be nearer a bus route and a shop. Not having a car has saved me a small fortune.

cw18

Wish I could get my insurance that cheap. I passed my test at 19 (almost 30 years ago!), have a clean licence, and the only claims have been because there was no one else to claim against (forced off road, broken into, and smashed windscreen from a firework) - the last of which was in 2003. Yet I can't get my renewal under £300 :eek:

And that's with 70% NCD, so if I lost that I'd be looking at a first annual premium of over £1k..... which means it could make sense for me to keep an unusable SORN'd and insured car on my drive if I planned on replacing in a year or three.

First_Trouble

I'm hoping to start learning to drive myself in the new year after my debt free day of course!
We are planning on starting a family soon and a car would make life so much easier. We are also planning on relocating to the north by 2016 really do not want to bring a family up where we live currently neither of us feel safe in the area any more.

cw18

And on the subject of insurance....

I've just had the renewal quote for my buildings and contents insurance. Absolutely shocked to see an increase of 21.45% on last year, which means it's more than I was budgeting for 2015 which would have included an increase this year and next :eek:

Going to have to shop around, but in the past 10 years I've never found anyone who comes close - apart from 1 or 2 companies I wouldn't consider touching as I've never heard anything good about them when claims are submitted

[Deleted User]

Loving all the discussion about cars. Me and OH have a car each as we both need them to get to work. However, I will be finishing my current job in 5 weeks time and I have been thinking about getting rid of one of the cars. Not floated this past OH yet as he will be against it. However, I can walk to most places locally and then use the bus to go further afield. It really depends on the location of the new job I get so I will need to wait and see.

Looking at my annual budgets and running tow cars is always the biggest expense so it would be nice to get rid of one.

cw18

And RESULT !!!

Did a run through Compare The Meerkat, then off to a couple of sites it flagged up. One came up at just under half the renewal, but wasn't as high cover for either buildings (half, but the BCIS site suggested this was more than enough) or contents (down by 20% - if wanted a quote for more needed to speak to a special team). Then ran quote through the site for my current company to match my renewal, and it came in at 52% of my renewal quote. So I phoned them. It appears that some of the difference is down to an agent marking my account as I run a business from home (apparently put on last year when my increase was only pennies meaning I didn't spot anything), so the chap took that off. Still came in at more than the website, but slightly under last years renewal. He took a look at the on-line quote and tweaked which brought it down further (did locks meet requirements which they do). Final quote there was 50.3% of my renewal, and only £25 more than the cheapest of the others I'd looked at (which wasn't as good cover). So I've renewed at that price, which is actually £140 LESS than last year

[Deleted User]

Brilliant result there, cw:beer:

It just goes to show how profitable a bit of time and effort can be.
Good on yer for persisting when you were talking to a 'real' person:T.