How did the month go by so fast? It’s already the last day of Jan! I only have 11 more months left in 2019? No way!
It’s a great feeling to have, to look forward to what the day has to bring. This comes with loving the fact that I am back at work. It is amazing what the sense of financial security and the mindset around it can do to the approach to work that I actually go to work just because I want to, not because I need to.
I digress, that is not the reason for today’s post. It’s been a full month of driving our sexy lil’ purr-cat around and I must say it’s been amazing! I think back to our mindset just about 10 months ago on why we are car-free and it really all still applies. The one factor that changed is that I am now working in a far out location and life has never been the same again (just for dramatic effect really!). We’re still yet to collect on that $20 from Coco#1!
CocoCar (I just made this up, Mr.C might have a bit of a chuckle reading this!) is bad for our health though as we’ve almost eliminated any daily walks since we drive door-to-door almost everywhere. We make more of an effort to get out and exercise weekly now to compensate, hopefully by a larger margin.
Financially: How are we doin’, good-lookin’?
This should be quite interesting for those considering a car purchase. Our actual cost of car ownership for the month of January (with insurance & road tax taken into consideration) is a whopping $1,497.67. [Gosh, way off target Mr.15HWW, hahah)]
I’ve put an approximate of $400 a year for car servicing, taking into consideration this is a 2 year old car so it’s in fairly good condition.
But hey, let’s not forget that the cost of owning a car has also eliminated some of our existing spend.
| Money saved: | |
| Ms.K’s daily GrabHitch to work | 630.00 |
| Misc Taxi Spend | 80.00 |
| Mr.C’s work commute cost | 73.50 |
| 783.5 |
That’s half the cost of car ownership. Primarily due to my cost to get in to work however this is a firm spend that I was willing to take on with taking a job that’s 28km away from home, one way!
Now, the icing on the cake is that we have become GrabHitch drivers now! Oh the tables have turned! The wind has changed! The Hitchee became the Hitcher? LOL
Total income from Grab Hitchin’ is…(cue drum-roll) $831.50! Woohoo! That’s more than the car installment! That’s more than the petrol + toll + parking! That’s 52% of the total cost of car ownership! That’s….that’s….that’s sensational!
Put all these numbers together and quite essentially, we’ve actually made a “savings” of $117.33 by actually having a car!
| Money spent: | 1,497.67 |
| Money saved: | 783.50 |
| Money Earned: | 831.50 |
| 117.33 |
Other benefits of having our sexy beast:
- We’ve managed 2 trips to Johor in January. One was for fun and whilst we were there, we saved a tonne doing some grocery shopping (we spent SGD119 in total but saved in excess of SGD77 ~ in excess because I compared the cost of 60% of the items bought with what I would have paid in Sg) as well as filling up petrol. The second trip was a necessary trip to get the keys to our marina facing duplex at Puteri Harbour (up for sale, let us know if you are interested!).
- We managed to make friends and widen our social network. It’s wonderful to chat with some of our hitch passengers about all kinds of topics, from construction to some unknown durian variety to stand-up comedy and of course, kids!
- We get to send Coco#1 to school, together!
This whole car business is quite interesting and turning out to be quite fun! Let’s see how we manage to keep up our hustling for the rest of the year!
Your are absolutely nailing car ownership! I am quite surprised Grab Hitch can net so much, no wonder COE prices are increasing!
Judging by the numbers and lifestyle, it certainly makes a lot of sense for your to have a car.
Thanks for popping by Mr.15HWW, we’ve been missing your writing! Quite frankly, we were surprised how the numbers added up and needless to say, having the car has been just wonderful. Now that we’ve a taste of this delicious poison, we’re not certain how to do without it when we need to go LEAN!
Problem for the future Coconuts 😉 Present day Coconuts will continue to be in gratitude, daily 😉