part0032

Every plan, savings or budget is personalized and cannot be implemented by your neighbor. It won’t be the right fit for them. So is your car.

You can personalize it even further by wanting a sunroof/convertible.

The concept of buying a car the right way depends on one’s financial situation. Ask yourself before buying a car.

Both the answers to the above questions should be a yes before choosing to buy a car.

The minute you take the car out of the showroom the price of the car goes down by a minimum of 30% to 50%.

If you have a loan you should be paying an interest on the loan. How much is it that you are paying? And how long are you going to pay?

For the convenience of traveling in your car is it worth paying $200 / $300 every month excluding fuel and parking charges?

Would you rather be a little less comfortable traveling on a public transport and saving $150 to $250 till you have saved enough to buy a car?

Chances are that if you start the practice of saving the money to buy a car you will end up buying a second-hand car.

And you will feel just as happy as buying a new car.

Choose to be financially free especially when it comes to paying for depreciating assets.

The general rule of thumb is to save one year’s worth of income for buying a car.

Is that not enough? Maybe you could choose a cheaper model and settle for a second hand or better yet, increase your income!

We choose to buy a car because we want to be comfortable, not getting constrained by the time limits of public transport and generally wanting to save time.

We will end up saving about one to a maximum of two hours every day by traveling in a car.

Would you rather spend the time watching TV, Browsing / Cooking your tomorrow’s lunch?

An average man watches TV / uses a mobile phone for over 4 hours a day.

But browsing is pleasurable for us and for most of them waiting in traffic in a car is not.

Would you trade $250 every month for getting enough time to browse / cook / whatever you want to do?

That’s exactly what you are doing when you buy a car which you can’t afford instead of traveling in a public transport for a few years.

But I am getting a car am I not?

Yes. But is the car worth the money which you are paying for? It is depreciating every day, every time you use and every extra mile it moves.

You are better off with a second-hand car with less mileage. It would do the same job and you would end up not spending 50% more for the same car just because it was not used before.

People also buy a car for the prestige of owning it.

We all would like to be treated well and the people who judge you often judge you by the appearances and it includes the car you drive.

What is the car that fits your standard and appeases your pride?

If you are from a middle class or having a rich background owning a car is a basic requirement and is often taken for granted.

The truth is if your financial situation is bad, as in case, you go into debt for buying a depreciating asset and cannot repay it within the next 5 years, you don’t deserve to buy a car as long as it is not absolutely impossible to commute without it.