Does a car cost ~1,000/month?
Where by "car" i mean:
1. Payment or annualized cost. That is, if the car cost $36,000 and I'd keep it for ten years, then that $3,600/year or $300/month. Similarly, if the payment $300/month on a loan, then that goes here. So, this is either upfront payment or monthly payment over the life of the car.
2. Gas
3. Insurance
4. Parking
5. Tickets
6. Maintenance and upkeep.
7. Taxes and other routine fees.
My guess is this is close to right, but I'm not sure. I don't have first-hand experience, as we've been a car-free household for eight years.
Is this anywhere close to right? If not, what am I missing?
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Emergency maintenance and lost opportunity cost when the car breaks down when you absolutely depended upon it.
ReplyDeleteThat's the kind of thing that destroys precarious economic situations, in a way that strikes me as qualitatively different from regular oil-change charges, so I'm not even sure how to calculate it.
Legit.
ReplyDeleteWhen I do have and relied upon a car, I remember what happened after a car accident when I couldn't afford the body work.
Namely, I drove it in shitty condition for a year.
And that's the nicest way that could go, of course: I had a huge support network, and found someone to buy the car when I left Oklahoma.
Depends entirely on circumstances and location. I think you probably are correct within a factor of 2 in either direction.
ReplyDeleteI sold my last car back around 2005. When I was using it, I racked up parking tickets until they were more expensive on a monthly basis than parking, so I started paying 150/mo for parking and then didn't have any more tickets. That cost has probably increased by 50-75% in the last 12 years.
If I was commuting to the city in it, my daily parking cost would have been about $20 a day. I traded that for a reverse commute after 2001, but it is a cost someone could easily have.
I usually put on about 50-100 miles per day for my job, or somewhere around 15-30k miles per year.
Taxes and registration are not really significant, Insurance depends entirely on how much of it you want and what your record is like. Could be 150/year or 200/month. Maybe more, I'm not sure.
Moving violations are not a cost of having a car, they are a cost of your own behavior. Mine were expensive, but they should not be included.
If you're not in a major metropolitan area, these numbers will be much lower.
Luke Miller Moving violations are a function of your behavior and skin tone.
ReplyDeleteonce upon a time, when the world was racist and I was 24, on New Year's Eve in Oklahoma, I got pulled over by a cop....
ReplyDeleteI was drunk. My license said home was 20 miles away. I convinced the cop I was only going a mile or two -- true! -- and he let me go.
I should have been arrested. Like, absolutely ought to have been.
Similarly ...
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time, when the world was racist and my cousin was Asian (legit, he is), he and five white guys were caught in Texas with weed....
And my cousin was the only one arrested. And convicted, turns out.
Anyway, blurg: I think it makes sense to budget for moving violations if you frequently get them. And that's what this little exercise is about: What needs to be the monthly budget for car ownership? What are the costs you have that you don't if you don't have a car?
ReplyDeleteIs this gross costs, or net (vs. the cost of not having a car)?
ReplyDeleteGross costs. It's the first part of a maybe five part essay figuring out what sort of living is less expensive, both in terms of time and money, from a couple different axes.
ReplyDeleteMy hypothesis is I'll wind up proving it is cheaper to be rich.
The rich are going to pay the up-front (way cheaper) amortized cost, just for starters.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
ReplyDeletePlus, the few millionaires that I know (and who have confirmed it) own cars and always drive themselves. So far as I can tell, uber and lyft are for the upper middle class, not for the rich. So, either they are doing some calculation I haven't understood (possible!), they have ingrained habits that no longer apply (possible!), or I'm right and car ownership is more expensive than lyft + buses (also possible!).
I have found the cost of vehicle ownership to be pretty close to 3X the cost to fuel it, plus insurance, tickets, tolls, and parking
ReplyDeleteSo if you're spending $300 per month on gas and $1,200 per year for insurance, tickets, tolls, and parking, than $1,000 per month is a pretty good estimation.
Dylan Ross So ...
ReplyDelete$2 / gallon, right?
Cars get what now, ~40 miles/gallon?
One place I might live if I had a car instead of my car-free life is 20 miles away. So, that's a 40 mile round trip. Is that a gallon? So, $2?
$2/day times 30 days (say) is $60/month in gas. Is $180/month by that metrc.
That sounds low. Is it because I'm not putting in anything for non-work? Probably. Let's double it to be safe, then it's $360/month. That still sounds low.
Am I missing something? (like the price of gas, or how efficient cars are?)
In NJ, gas is about $2.35 per gallon. My Yaris does about 38 MPG, but my wife's minivan does about 23 MPG.
ReplyDeleteWe spend close to $300/month on gas (commuting, driving kids, errands, etc.), averaging in trips to visit family, drive to Camp Nerdly, and other one-off road trips.
We save $600 per month into a "maintenance and replacement" savings account. Whatever remains after oil changes, tire rotations/replacement and other repairs, plus the residual value of the vehicles is available for replacing them in the future.
I did the math last year when I was buying my current car. 5-year TCO was about $40,000 CAD. I have no idea how long I'll have it, but the warranties run out around 8 years, so monthly about $415.
ReplyDeleteJonathan Beverley Wait wait, after the first five there's more costs, so the TCO would be higher at 8. For five, it's 8k/year. So that's ~650/year. Did that include gas and insurance?
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols: Derp. Assuming maintenance costs is constant per year, 475/mo. Probably closer to 500 in reality.
ReplyDeleteNumbers include fuel, insurance, and expected maintenance.
Huh. That is much lower than I expected!
ReplyDeleteWhy is it so much lower than I expected?
It's an electric car. Cost is heavily front-loaded.
ReplyDelete5 year TCO was very similar to similarly featured cars, btw. Cost savings don't start to happen until the 6-8 year range.
ReplyDeleteAddendum: I think I also drive less than the comparators above. I do about 15,000 km per year.
10 years for a modern car is, well, wishful thinking. Most of these modern things have a maximum viable lifespan of 5 years before the maintenance that needs to be done exceed the price of a new car.
ReplyDeleteConsumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org/) says the average life expectancy of a new vehicle these days is around 8 years or 150,000 miles.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols I believe it is 80% the ability to yell racist things in a car that keeps the rich people we know owning their own cars and driving themselves.
ReplyDeleteAssuming all my transactions are tagged correctly, since September 2009 (& I actually divided the total by 96 months instead of 98 because I'm really iffy on the first two months of data) my mean spending on auto and transportation is $417.84 per month, plus I currently have $40 per month deducted from my paycheck pre-tax for parking, and parking has been around that much for the duration.
ReplyDeleteThis includes ~2 years of driving a 1991 model year car with exorbitant repair and maintenance costs and buying a model year 2008 car in late 2011 and its associated much higher insurance and personal property tax costs.
I can get you a mean monthly millage over ~60 months, too, if you want, but that involves looking at my car's dashboard which is not immediately on-hand.
George Austin That's pretty great! So, a real life modern example that it costs ~450/month to own and operate a vehicle. That's in line with Jonathon's, and lower than some of the others. Primarily, the ones that involve kids.
ReplyDeleteOK, I think I will revise downward to ~500/month, both for easiness (ie, it's round as shit), and nearness to reality.
Next in the series:
ReplyDeleteplus.google.com - Does mass transit cost $500/month? Where by "mass transit", I mean: 1. Actua...