Need help making decision about owning a car

I had a crude eye test today and almost read the 20/30 eye line. I need to study the shape of Fs and Ps. Doc said he would say my vision is around 20/40 with my glasses pushed back on my face. This means I can likely get a drivers license and not have to live in the city or take the bus. Maybe I can get my CDL and live in my truck?

Working at 11 bucks an hour and taking the bus, paying rent and other bills. I have roughly 300 bucks over a month to spend on stuff or save. I dont have cable, just a prepaid phone and share the internet. Not much more could be cut to reduce my bills, so 300 is about it unless I get a raise or second job.

I dont think 300 bucks would cover insurance, gas and car payment monthly, so would need to get a second job or a better paying one. Taking the bus I am limited on hours and days worked too.

What would you do? I know it would be great to just drive the 11 miles directly to and from work than taking the hour and half long bus ride to and from, plus I could have more energy and time in a day to hit a gym, maybe do daily grocery shopping vs weekly and a second job for more money.

I really want the freedom and more money, but I dont think I can swing it unless I rent a car to go job hunting, then buy one or save and buy one used.

Thanks for any help.

That is a very tough choice. The problem is that $300 doesn't leave a lot of room for car + insurance + gas + upkeep. The problem with browing money for a car with this little leeway is that 1) you don't have much money reserve, 2) your interest rates won't be very good.

My opinion is to consider the following:
1) ask yourself is the time you save by owning a car multiplied by your post-tax hourly rate greater than or equal to the money you would spend?
I.e. hrs time saved * ($11-tax/hr) >= $300 - bus fares
Assuming your car ride = 30 min and bus = 1.5 hr roundtrip, and bus fares were $50/mo, then roughly 25 hrs/mo * $10/hr = $250

2) Does the annoyance of being dependant on the bus outweight the annoyance and expense of a car?

3) Do you have future plans for the cash that you could otherwise save? Everyone should have a rainy day fund in case of emergencies as it prevents people from going into debt which is even more expensive.

4) Consider insurance costs before getting a car

5) If the car breaks down and needs $500 in repairs, could you afford it or do the work yourself?

6) All things considered, you may be able to get by by saving for a few months, getting a used small car, get collision only insurance. However, this does not leave much leeway as you have mentioned. Too bad you can't bicycle to work ... get your exercise and save the cash.

Building off of rayearth,


Check out a bicycle if the route somehow allows it. Many areas do. A reasonable bike will surprise you at how quickly it can gobble up the miles.

OR, maybe check out a used cycle? You can get a cycle for much less money than a car, and the fuel is better. Insurance might be better, but I can't speak to that. If you stay sensible and stay with something around 400-600 CC used, you can get something that can handle itself in traffic, and still be of good quality for the price. A lot of folks buy the smaller ones and then quickly trade up. Heck, you can check on the 250 CC and around scooters. They can do a reasonable job around town. I see them all the time around here. Yes, there are tradeoffs with motorcycles, but no they are not a guaranteed trip to the organ doning center; a lot of the accidents I've seen is due to the cycle operator. Just a suggestion, but a motorcycle will allow you greater mobility, which might allow you greater access to better jobs, which might allow you to financially grow into a nice used car.

Just food for thought, but rayearth covered a lot of ground when he said that you need to do a direct comparison. If it only comes down to convenience, you might not want to throw the kibble after it. Save the pennies, any way you can.

Second the bycicle idea. When I ride, I can easily make ten miles in a little over an hour (once I get back in shape after winter! )


That sounds as if biking would be a little bit faster for you than riding the bus, and as a side benefit you'd get the exercise you mentioned!

What's to lose?

I think thats a no on the bike. Its a bit painful to ride my exercise bike 20 minutes. No bike route. The scooter and motor cycle idea sounds good. Ive driven them before and the city limit is 35mph the whole path. Just got to worry of someone stealing the scooter from the parking lot.

Cobb,

If you can hook up with the scooter/motorcycle idea, you can go a long way toward stopping thefts if you can hook up to a parking rack with a kryptonite lock or something like that. The thieves won't generally spend too long trying to swipe a protected bike or scooter unless it's one of the nicer ones.

Also, you could talk with your boss and see if there's any place to park it inside, if you've got a warehouse in the building or something like that.

For 35 miles an hour, even the 250cc cycles can handle that, and can do the limit quite well. They come fairly cheap if you look around, and they are simple enough that they don't cause a lot of problems. Generally air cooled.

While a car adds to your mobility it also adds to your expenses. I like rayearth's equation to determine the savings. Don't forget that cigarettes can eat up a few hundred a month, so stopping will add to your spare cash.

The weather in VA will not allow motorcycles year round, so take that into account.

When you buy a car, it's always best if you can save for it instead of borrowing money. Shopping carefully, you might be able to get an ugly but drivable car for very little cash. Cars like that will usually sell for what you pay for it, do drive it for a while and save money for the next one.

Daniel

A car would be nice, but I don't think you could afford to maintain any car that you can afford to buy right now. Don't try to borrow money to buy a car. It's not a safe bet. How about if you get a motorcycle for now, in VA you can ride it a lot of the time. Still take the bus in bad weather. If you can, start saving up for a car while you ride the bike. It'll take a few years, but you'll still want a car then. If you can't save up any money while you are running the bike then you couldn't afford a car anyhow.

Last month I gave my friend a car for free. It was pretty sucky, but it gets him to work on time and his broken car doesn't. The same day I gave my brother my old car. (The friend got my brother's old car). Now that I think of it, I have given away almost every car I have ever owned. They weren't worth much effort to sell, anyway.

What I'm trying to say is, you might be able to get a car for free. You can risk driving w/o insurance for a while, but it is not recommended.

There's even a thread here on CPF which describes how to get free gas.

Or you can always get your girlfriend to pay for it.

Sleestak said:

Check out a bicycle if the route somehow allows it. Many areas do. A reasonable bike will surprise you at how quickly it can gobble up the miles.

Click to expand...

Definitely. Especially in city traffic, a strong rider can match auto travel time, beat bus time by a large margin, and even sometimes come close to matching the subway (except express runs).

cosine said:

Second the bycicle idea. When I ride, I can easily make ten miles in a little over an hour (once I get back in shape after winter! )

Click to expand...

I guess I still have residual fitness from when I used to ride more because two weeks ago I took an 11 mile ride after not riding at all for 6 weeks and it took me about 48 or 49 minutes, some of which included slowdowns or stops for traffic. Personal best for 10 miles is 25 minutes, BTW, but that was when I was in college in NJ and route along the shoulder of a Route 1 which had no traffic lights and nothing to really get in my way. Best I ever did on a city ride is 7.3 miles in 21 minutes. You always have something slowing you down here but my best rides are within shouting distance of what an express subway train can do, without the waiting time.

Parking rack? Nope. Theres a lamp post across the stree from me, a few trees in the yard and a handicapp sign, but thats made out of wood at my apartment. At work I wouldnt worry abut it getting stolen. Think 250ccs can handle a 322 lb lard arse?

gadget_lover, few hundred a month in smoke? I make that much in a year. I only smoke half to quarter pack a day. Maybe 400 bucks a year in smoke. Yeah, I plan on buying or paying for it at a fair amount and interest rate if I do that. If I get it finaniced, making sur eno balloon payments.

greenlight, no current girlfriend. Last one left me at a nascar race weekend where I bought tickets to both races and pit passes. I will ask the mechanics at the shop where i work to see if they have a car that runs, will pass inspection, but aint too great looking. Maybe they could help me after work to fix it if needed.