2014 Frugal Living Challenge

p00

[Deleted User] wrote:

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.

We did this when I retired and the OH was being made redundant. We pxed the 2 cars and bought a new one.

I didnt think I would miss mine as it sat outside but to be honest I did and it became worse when OH got another job and there was no car there. Ive bought another car now as we are in the fortunate position to be able to buy a nearly new one but when I think what I got trade in on my other car and how much Ive spent on another one it has been totally false economy. If I decided to go back to part time work I can and its also an independence thing that I can go where I want when I want and since OH works long hours it means things dont have to be fitted in around his days off. AND using the bus everywhere isnt always cheaper.

The more frugal thing is that my car tax is only £20 a year, is more economical than the other and I have 3 years servicing with it.

Being frugal on everything else for years has meant I have choices I can make and having a car of my own is one of them.

xxp00

Bobarella

Congratulations CW, thats a great result for you!

Interesting to see how it sort of divides us on opinion, the car thing. Frugalsod, I agree on travelling times. I find if I leave myself an hour I can get most places pretty quickly.
Frugaldom -I can honestly say in the last 3 months the only thing we are now worrying about getting a taxi for is getting our cat to the vet for his annaul check up next month. He is a heavy fellow & the bus stop is about 10 minutes walk away which carrying a heavy cat in a box on one arm is going to be a challenge, plus maybe stressful for him? a friend may be able to run us there but if not a cab may be best.

alja

I can't imagine living without my car, I can't see me ever wanting to not have one as I love cars and driving etc. I'm still happy to get the bus and used to do so quite often but it's getting more expensive and less reliable from where I live, we don't have a great service. It's also useful for jobs where the bus routes just don't go etc too. Who knows one day in the future I may not want/need one (I'm 25 now), but I love cars/driving too much I just can't see it happening! I hope I can always afford to keep one on the road. hehe!


I've still been selling items on my local fb selling pages and it has gone well over the last few weeks. I've made £84 now since giving it a go again lately. It's been great whilst being out of work for the time being.


If anyone is on o2 it's worth checking out their pri0rity moments app if you can have it. Today I got a free hot chocolate and a free Christmas card. I already had a Christmas card for my parents from the sales earlier this year, so I grabbed one for them for Christmas 2015!! They're the only ones I buy a special card for anyways, so it made sense to really!


Oh, and I found a bargain in Mr T yesterday...two fly swatters for 10p! Very exciting indeed! They will come in handy for my future first home... haha!

cw18

I don't want to be without a car, but to be honest I use it so little now that if I'd never had one I don't think I'd be hankering after getting one.

And it is a major expense while trying to cope on a very limited income. After adjusting next years budgets in line with what I've just managed to get my home insurance down to (this years premium + 20%) it's looking like I need to find just under £7900 - of which £1260 is car related. So that's almost 16% of my outgoings :eek:

And the car's still depreciating (although very slowly down to scrap value now) and I don't have any savings plan in place to replace it.....

quidsy

My car costs me approx. 2k a year including petrol, tax, mot & any work needs doing, that's on a best case basis. If it wasn't for needing it to get son to school/party/extra curricular activities I would happily live with out. OH doesn't drive so he & ds take public transport to work & school so it mostly sits outside but I worked out that even if I spent 40 quid a week on taxis it would break even but in terms of time management, I can't live without it right now.

Before he was in school & after we moved back from overseas we didn't have one for a year & apart from big purchases, where I just borrowed my mums car to pick up, I didn't miss it but there is something about junior school age kids that makes it difficult to live without. As it is, I pretty much do less that 8k miles a year at best so it is low usage but I dread to think how much it would cost to run if I was using it all the time!

Anyway, a bit of good news for me for a change. I have an old Lloyds account that I wasn't using apart from to put odd bits of spending money in & I realized I was paying £10 a month for the privilege, so called up to cancel the account & on investigation, it seems that 4 years ago someone had placed an account control, meaning I was paying £10 a month to not go into an unplanned overdraft. As I had never asked for this nor did they have records of why, I got a full refund plus £30 apology. A nice hefty 490 in my account which I have earmarked for ad hoc unexplained expenses through the year. Just need to update next years budget. All for the 30 minutes it took to complete the call. Happy day

cw18

quidsy wrote: »

A nice hefty 490 in my account...... All for the 30 minutes it took to complete the call.

Fantastic :T




My car costs more than the £1620, that's just my budgeted share. There's another £480 I anticipate getting from DS1 towards maintenance / general running costs which put me on par with your £2k

(and £480 towards petrol, but I expect him to use all that as he's a nasty habit of just sitting in the car with the engine running while it warms up - average mpg has dropped from 42 to 35 since he went on the insurance :eek:)

First_Trouble

Yesterday was my 4th NSD in a row. Will have to break the streak today though need some yoghurt and cream so definitely will be a LSD in any case.

Have Christmas virtually sorted too. Just need to make some more jams, chutneys and marmalades to bulk out my hampers and then assemble.

alja

I'll have to sit down and see what my car costs me next year. I've been very lucky to have jobs I've been able to walk to in the last two years, meaning petrol costs have been very low for me. Considering I'm 25 my car insurance is quite low (it was about £200 something this year and I was able to get a £60 Am*zon voucher by purchasing it via mse). The one thing I want to work on is changing gear earlier, I like to accelerate quickly and feel it's probably hurting my pocket more than I realise. My car tax is about £175 at the moment, which isn't the nicest amount in the world, but thankfully I haven't had much go wrong with the car. The usual parts to go we can replace ourselves and buy cheaply from eb*y. So this helps to level the costs out.


My next job I will probably have to drive to once again. So I'll sit down and work out how much it's costing me. I always make sure I fill up at Mr T with my Mr T credit card though (paid off in full each month) as this really helps to add to my points. My little car is 10 years old now (I've had it for 8 of those) it has been my first and only car, but it's in great condition, I can't see any reason to change it to anything newer at the moment, whilst I'm saving up a much needed hefty deposit for my first home.

cw18

I fill up at Mr T - using DD's Clubc@rd (she gave me a spare).

I don't spend enough in store to get the fuel saver, while she spends enough to get about 12p/litre off each month but doesn't have a car. So I use her discount, and she gets the points from the transaction which she then exchanges for day out vouchers to take my GDs places they couldn't otherwise afford. A "win win" situation as the points she gets aren't worth as much as the saving I make on the petrol, but she's getting points that she otherwise wouldn't

his_missus

Fortunately Hubby has a company vehicle. He pays more in tax to use it for personal use rather than just for work. He reckons it works out to £70 a month extra in tax, work pay for his diesel, insurance, MOT and any repairs so it's worth it.


Been looking at this month's finances as I'm actually going to have to use some of my savings to pay the CC this month and I couldn't understand why we were so over budget. Too many impulse shops and large supermarket top-up shops - £125 in Mr A's over 2 weeks when I budget £80 a week for ALL spends - so I'm definitely starting a spending diary from Friday!