Want it/Need it -- Chapter 1 Your Ride

the basics

Our cars – they get us where we need to go. But a car is so much more than transportation, it is the ability to go wherever we want, whenever we want.

Our cars are sanctuaries providing time alone to cruise around and think things through or go ahead and check things out. They present us with the opportunity to be spontaneous within our highly scheduled lives.

They are the place where we have no-eye-contact meaningful conversations. In fact, the car would be a great place to have this conversation.

Our cars – we love them.

But they come with a big price tag.

the talk

Cars are among the largest expenses we incur, so examining the trade-offs involved in buying and owning a car is time well spent. Here are some considerations:

• A starting point to objectivelyexamine whether a car is a want or need is where you live and where you work.
  • You live or work in a remote or rural area. In this case you need to have your own transportation.√  Need.
  • If you live and work in a city, chances are that a car will be less necessary and a very expensive luxury to maintain. √ Want
  • In the suburbs- a toss-up. Weigh the costs of commuting via car and public transport not only in $$, but in time.
  • In college? An off campus job or internship may make it a necessity,  but it’s hard to make those numbers work when you’re not working.
•  Another key thing to keep in mind is to make this decision based upon what you are doing right now. Cars are expensive to buy but also expensive to maintain.
• To this point, what a car really costs breaks into two pieces; the cost to purchase the car and the cost of owning the car. It may sometimes be the case that a higher trade in value or lower maintenance costs will make a more expensive car cheaper in the long run. There are a number of websites- Edmunds, Consumer Reports,Kelly Blue Book, to name a few- that have calculators to help you determine what the cost of owning a specific new or used car will be.
• Maintaining a car can be an expensive proposition: routine checkups aren’t so bad but a new set of tires can set you back several years worth of lattes.
• Additional expenses to consider are:
  • Parking- do you need to pay for a space at home or at work, do you need to buy a permit, do you need to pay tolls to come and go ?
  • Insurance- auto insurance varies depending on your age, gender, driving record, marital status, location of your home, mileage driven and occupation.
  • Taxes- Sales and excise taxes are driven by state laws.
  • Tolls- Highway, bridge and tunnel tolls are also a form of taxation levied by states. Tolls may become a relevant consideration: the transportation bill sent to Congress by President Obama in April 2014 includes a provision allowing states to place tolls on interstate roads to raise revenue to replace crumbling infrastructure.
• Being Green- Driving increases your carbon footprint. Hybrid cars help but taking public transportation, if it is available, helps even more. The future may hold even more incentives to utilize public transportation where it is available. The above referenced transportation bill is part of a move toward “smart cities”: those with sustainable economic and environmental growth. In Ireland, there has been legislation proposed that would dramatically raise road tolls in an effort to force people to use the public bus system more. The primary purpose stated for these proposed laws is not to raise revenue but to decrease the air pollution and Ireland’s dependence on fossil fuels.¹

the advice

Whether a want or a need, the decision to purchase and maintain a car is a financially important one. Be sure you have considered all of the costs, as well as examining all of the alternatives, before committing to your ride.

¹.http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/taxes-to-force-you-from-car-on-to-bus-29848133.html