Budgeting for cars?

badmemory

I always buy cars from new now, that is for the last 30 years & I'm on car 3 with hopefully 8/9 years to go. The reason - well look at the Raw2k website as an example. Who do you think buys these cars/wrecks. I know one at the moment that looks lovely, is less than a year old & has a clean bill of health. I wouldn't touch it with a disinfected bargepole.

JoeEngland

zagfles wrote: »

You can buy via a broker and get several thousand off. My last car was 20% off the list price, brand new off the dealer forecourt. The supposed massive first year depreciation only applies when you look at the list price. Virtually no-one pays the list price.

I once compared notes with someone who always buys cars about a year old and sells after about 4 years - he had much higher maintenance costs than I do, I buy new and sell after 10+ years, despite his cars being younger on average.

Is that because of the make of cars he buys or maybe they're ex-fleet cars that were thrashed for a year?

zagfles

JoeEngland wrote: »

Is that because of the make of cars he buys or maybe they're ex-fleet cars that were thrashed for a year?

Who do you think the main sellers of year old cars are? Ask yourself why anyone would be selling a car after just a year. Fleets, ex rental cars, taxis, or people (like someone I used to work with) who'd buy a new car every year just because he liked cars and had nothing better to waste his money on. He used to try selling his year old cars to people in the office but no-one would buy. They'd seen how he drives

Only way I'd buy a year old car is if it was from someone I knew with a genuine reason for sale, eg they're emigrating, they need a bigger car for a family etc.

zagfles

shinytop wrote: »

What miserable bunch of old skinflints we are with cars (myself included). Hasn't anyone blown a large chunk on something exotic?

Yup! Being a skinflint in most things enables you to have money to spend on stuff you really enjoy. Just planning my 5th foreign holiday of the year

JoeEngland

Wenlock wrote: »

£8k on a single holiday?!

I’m in my fifties. I doubt my total lifetime spending on holidays is more than two or three thousand pounds. Consisting of two self catering foreign holidays and the odd UK cottage rental (only including my personal share of the costs to be fair).

Each to their own but it would make me feel sick to spend much money on a holiday.

In terms of cars, I agree with the idea of buying a reasonable quality car at the one or two year point to minimise depreciation. Then keep it for several years until repair costs become higher.

If I didn’t have elderly relatives to take to hospital appointments I don’t think I would bother running a car at all.

It's whatever floats your boat. Some people would be aghast at spending 8k on a holiday, but holidays were and are our main luxury. If we'd spent less on holidays the spare money would just have gone into savings as we don't live the high life or have expensive tastes in general. Now I'm not working the holiday budget is lower but still enough for one long haul holiday a year.

adonis10

Nowhere near retirement but, in the absence of a lottery win, I imagine my attitude will be the same as it is now - buy a 2-4 year old car in good condition, low mileage and pretty much run it until it is dead. Been driving for 19 years and on my 4th car which I envisage keeping for another 7-10 years all being well. Bought it for £7.4k in Feb 2018 at 3.5 years old with 9k on the clock so can see me getting a decade out of it at which point I hope that I will have circa £7-8k for a replacement. I can handle depreciation of £700 ish per year as it makes it a lot cheaper than leasing. Would never buy new and changing every few years is not for me unless it is an opportunity too good to turn down (as my current car was - old diesel was in great shape at 100k but bought this car from an elderly family member at a small discount but what was worth more was the peace of mind that it had been treated well since new). My funds in retirement will be limited, as they are now, so would much rather spend any excess on travel experiences than a more expensive bit of tin.

p00hsticks

Wenlock wrote: »

If I didn’t have elderly relatives to take to hospital appointments I don’t think I would bother running a car at all.

Yes, we're thinking along the same lines when our current model gives up the ghost (still got a few years in it yet). Since we retired and OH got his bus pass it sits in the garage much of the time. I think when that time comes we'll need to do a cost benefit analyis on whether it makes sense to replace it or use the money saved for taxis/rail fares and the occasional car rental for longer journeys.

Marine_life

Wenlock wrote: »

£8k on a single holiday?!

I’m in my fifties. I doubt my total lifetime spending on holidays is more than two or three thousand pounds. Consisting of two self catering foreign holidays and the odd UK cottage rental (only including my personal share of the costs to be fair).

Each to their own but it would make me feel sick to spend much money on a holiday.

In terms of cars, I agree with the idea of buying a reasonable quality car at the one or two year point to minimise depreciation. Then keep it for several years until repair costs become higher.

If I didn’t have elderly relatives to take to hospital appointments I don’t think I would bother running a car at all.

Most of the difference in retirees projected spending is on holidays and travel and I certainly don't think spending £8k on a holiday for two is excessive in any way. In fact, we have a trip planned for roughly that amount in February next year (17-day cruise, long haul flights, hotels etc.) In fact, I think the total cost comes in at around £10k. Back in 2014, we did 6 weeks in Australia and New Zealand which cost £15,000.

As you say, each to their own.

zagfles

Marine_life wrote: »

Most of the difference in retirees projected spending is on holidays and travel and I certainly don't think spending £8k on a holiday for two is excessive in any way. In fact, we have a trip planned for roughly that amount in February next year (17-day cruise, long haul flights, hotels etc.) In fact, I think the total cost comes in at around £10k. Back in 2014, we did 6 weeks in Australia and New Zealand which cost £15,000.

As you say, each to their own.

:eek:I've budgetted about £15k annual spend on holidays in retirement for 2 of us, close to half our annual net income, but that will be a lot of holidays (or a few long ones). We intend to spend about a third of the year on holiday.

Frequent/long holidays will be a lot cheaper as, regardless of cost, you simply can't live for several months a year like people typically do on their "annual fortnight in the sun" type holiday. You'd end up 20 stone with a knackered liver!

So when you cut out eating out every night, drinking excessively, account for being able to book bargains, last minute or whenever you want without having to get leave authorised, staying longer to reduce the effect of flight costs, and having more time to see things at leisure eg taking local public transport rather than taxis, plus in our case no longer having to pay for the kids, I reckon we could have 4 months of holidays for not much more than the cost of around 4-6 weeks now :cool:

kinger101

I'll probably trade the Roller down for a Bentley.