My first car was a second-hand. My father subsidized my down payment and I paid the monthly installments. Years later I thought of buying a new car. I kept a record of my daily expenditure for three months, recording every cent spent. Then I did the estimations – installments, parking, insurance, road taxes, servicing and repairs, petrol. I found I could afford it. Another three months later I booked the new car.
The car serves me faithfully. No breakdowns, no problems, all within my budget.
Now every friend tells me this is a good time to get a new car.
Nowadays, whenever I want to buy an expensive item I will think, rethink, wait and rethink again. Do I really need it or want it?
Of course ‘expensive’ is relative to one’s income and assets.
Not long ago, there were offers at a superstore. I wanted to buy an electric rice cooker which can also cook porridge. I already have one at home. It cooks rice but could not keep the rice warm. The new cooker was not expensive. I bought it.
3 comments:
Frannxis, your comments on my post about my car purchase reminded me that you had a post about the same subject too. So I returned here to put in my 2 cents worth.
I thought that my buy was adventurous and a bit too young for my age. My, did you buy a Rover sports coupe in striking red? Haha, then I was too conservative.
I can see that you are a very prudent person - you always do your sums first before you buy anything, be it a car, a rice cooker or even persimmons. Indeed that is a very good practice. After all, a car is probably the 2nd biggest ticket item after a property. And compared to a property, a car would incur proportionately more additional regular expenditure too. However, I would like to reserve comments about thinking too hard when buying small ticket items like a rice cooker and persimmons.
Considering the volatile COE prices coupled with rising petrol and ERP prices, sometimes your 3-month old sums may turn out to be wrong, unless you have catered for a large safety margin. Therefore waiting too long may work against you in this case.
Normally people keep their cars for several years and the cost of car ownership tends to increase significantly over that period. A lot of people assume that their incomes would increase in tandem but they never think that they could be retrenched. When that happens, they become the New Poor.
Oops sorry Frannxis - on 2nd look, it seemed like a beemer to me, not a Rover. But you can't blame me for misidentifying the car 'cos the batch seemed to have dropped out from the bonnet. Don't angry lah, you know I like to joke. Er... is that the reason why you don't want to reply hah? Hehe.
My first two cars were also used vehicles, well, there ain't really nothing wrong with purchasing used cars as long as you take the proper steps in buying it. Taking your time to search and look which car would give you the best value for your money. Well, buying a car is one thing, maintaining it and driving it is another.
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