Can we afford 2 cars or is he being mean?

veeveexox

So I've been a Stay at home mum for near on 2 years, I'm starting nursing degree in september, I will spend half the time in uni and half on placement. I've been trying to convince my fiance to get a 2nd car as my placements will be throughout cheshire and it will take me 1 hour 45 on the bus there and back to the campus. I suggested getting a 125cc scooter but my fiance is worried about the safety aspect, Our monthly net income is 2600.
How much does it cost in petrol & maintenance to keep a car running?
i'm looking at spending £2000 on the car and insurance will be around £1000.

Mojisola

You need to work out if you can afford it!

Write down all your income and list all your bills and see whether there is enough left.

Work out how much you will have to spend on public transport as a comparison.

DUTR

You probably want to post it in the relationships board as they will tell you what you want to hear.
Turn it around, if you were the breadwinner and he was the stay at home dad, would you buy him a car? It's all about budgetting.

forgotmyname

It costs as much as the length of a piece of elasticated string.

How old are you? How long ago did you pass your driving test? Your postcode? These have a big affect on your insurance premium.

How many miles will you do to work and back? Between 15p and 20p per mile.

Than add on £100 - £200 a year tax? £60 MOT, £200 Servicing + repairs and tyres and brakes etc.

Can you afford it?

PasturesNew

£2600 is a fortune ....unless you expect a £20k car on finance and he's already got one on finance ... and if all your stuff's on finance .... etc etc

Only you know the figures.

Mojisola

Have you sorted out the problems raised in your other thread?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5220582

gilbert_and_sullivan

I agree, this is one for the relationships board.

Cheers Mojisola, i'm outa this one.

skittles_m

Judging from your other thread I don't think your partner will allow you to buy a second car.

He sounds quite scary to me

mgfvvc

veeveexox wrote: »

Our monthly net income is 2600.
How much does it cost in petrol & maintenance to keep a car running?
i'm looking at spending £2000 on the car and insurance will be around £1000.

That depends. Routine maintenance is likely to be at least £200 a year, plus fixing anything that goes wrong. A cheap car like that can prove very expensive in parts, if you pick the wrong car. Petrol costs will depend on miles driven, where you are driving, how economical a car you have, etc. You also need to budget for tyres, car tax and breakdown services.

The long and the short of it is that cars eat money. Some are worse than others and there is an element of luck involved as well. Financially buying and running a car on that income may involve sacrifices elsewhere, but also you may not be able to manage without a car for your placements?

skittles_m

Here are the basics:

1. MOT £45/year
2. Road tax most likely £145 for a small petrol car over 10 years old seeing that your budget is £2000
3. Routine maintenance as above poster suggested at least £200/year

This isn't even including any repairs, which is a good probability of it happening. Also insurance costs. which we'll say for arguments sake £1000/year.

You must factor in any depreciation of the car that you buy. Let's say that goes down by £200/year.
So if NOTHING goes wrong with the car (unlikely) you'll spend a MINIMUM of £1600/year or £134 a month.

Oh and I forgot petrol. Going by the time taken by bus (1 hour 45 min) return journey I'll say that's around 20 miles total/day. So per year that's around 6k miles. Assuming your small petrol car manages 42 MPG and based on today's average petrol prices, you'll end up paying close to £800/year.

So the total is now £2400/year or £200/month with NO repairs.

Andy_L

Here's some running cost figures from the AA

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