Need a car!

jack_1986

Hello,

This is my first time posting and I would appreciate any help anyone can offer...

I live with my partner and 2 year old son, I earn £26,160 per year which is our only income, I pay £800 a month rent and we receive around £500 in benefits per month. I have no debt and a credit score of 902 on Expedian. 

We desperately want a car but have very little cash left over at the end of the month. 

Car finance? Bank loan? Credit card? I have no idea what's best or if I can even afford it and wether my good credit score makes any difference?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks  

bargainbetty

If you have very little cash left at the end of the month, then you have to consider whether or not you can afford a vehicle. You would need to have sufficient to pay off any loan, vehicle tax, insurance, petrol and maintenance costs. 

Cars are money pits. 

Credit scores don't really mean anything - any lender will look at your income and outgoings and will only give you the money if you can afford to repay it. 

[Deleted User]

Visit the DFW boards for advice on cutting your costs. Then start saving a few hundred pounds a month. Once you've done that for a year, you'll be in a position to buy something. Then keep saving that amount every month to cover tax, insurance, petrol maintenance, MOT etc.

If you can't save that amount, then you know you can't afford a car and can stick to other alternatives.

Alter_ego

Do you actually need a car or just want one?

Ebe_Scrooge

As others have said, forget your credit score, it's neither used nor even seen by any lender.  And if you have little spare cash available each month, how do you expect to afford the loan repayments as well as the running and maintenance costs of a car?  ZX81 has about hit the nail on the head in my view.

If you actually need a car, from what you've said I'd say forget about looking at dealer's forecourts.  There's no way you're going to afford several thousand quid on a nice shiny newish car.  Scour the local small ads, Facebook, gumtree, etc.  If you take your time, there are some very good private-sale cars out there.  Just last month my son bought a cracking VW Passat for £900.  Bodywork showing its age for a 2007 car, but mechanically sound with full service history.

Of course, even at that you've still got to budget for tax, insurance, MOT, fuel, consumables like tyres, brakes, etc., plus the inevitable repairs.

MalMonroe

You say "I live with my partner and 2 year old son, I earn £26,160 per year which is our only income, I pay £800 a month rent and we receive around £500 in benefits per month. I have no debt and a credit score of 902 on Expedian."

I think you mean Experian. But that aside, your annual income is huge!! Certainly for someone like me, surviving on a few pensions.

You say £26,160 pa is your only income but you also have benefits of £500 per month, which brings your annual income to over £32,000 per annum - presumably before tax but even so, a really good wage.

How come you don't have anything left at the end of the month? 

A good place to start will be to write down all your incomings (don't forget those benefits this time) and all your outgoings. You say you have no debts so where on earth is all that money going? You should be able to afford a car each.

My annual income is a third of yours and yet I run a five year old car and have a pretty good lifestyle. (When coronavirus isn't around).

You don't need to have any loan or credit card, you've got enough coming in, you just need to budget more wisely by the looks of things. If you have very little cash left over each month (why? and also how?) you won't be able to keep up repayments. 

Just please sit down together and work out what you're spending on. And then see where you can cut down. If I had that amount of money coming in, I'd really think I was very well off indeed.

As others say, your credit score means nothing as nobody ever sees it. Only you. 

Jami74

MalMonroe said:

How come you don't have anything left at the end of the month? 

Maybe he pays £5,000 a year on public transport to get to work. And with rent of £800, possibly paying more than £1200 a year on council tax. 

jack_1986 said:

We desperately want a car but have very little cash left over at the end of the month. 

My car cost £900 three years ago and a further £300ish for tax and insurance. Every month I put £100 into a separate account and that covers MOT, tax, insurance and things like replacement tyres and windscreen wipers. I probably average £100 a month on petrol. In other words, my car costs me about £200 every month.

While you think a bit more about what sort of car you want and how you're going to fund it you could immediately open a separate account and start depositing £200 a month, the longer you think about it the more money you'll have already to go towards it.

When you say you have no debt, do you mean that you honestly do not owe anyone any money at all? Or do you mean that you are not counting loans/BNPL/overdrafts/credit cards that you make regular payments towards? I only because for a long time I didn't think I had debt, but in reality I was spending half the month in my overdraft and making payments towards a loan and obviously that money was not available for wants.

Here is the link to the famous SOA everyone talks about https://www.stoozing.com/soa.php You don't have to share it if you don't want but it can be helpful to see where your money goes and where you could make savings.