A new car is $40k, a 10 year old car seems to go for about $10k, so say $3k a year. So with a brand new car, still getting "around" that $6-7k a year.
Or to put it another way - at some point it HAS to be cheaper to own, because someone owns the car that is driving you around!
That's just plain stupid.
My driving went way down during the pandemic, but it's probably a better normal metric to measure my routine before a global anamloly.
>600 a year on car washes?
I was being very generous there to prove a point. I don't do a car wash monthly and I don't get the highest tier of car wash either.
Even the "stupidest" spending on my car for daily travel and I don't come within a stone's throw of justifying taxis, financially speaking save on.
Sometime around then.
I do think my car needs a car wash. Not necessarily this month, but definitely within the next year or so. It costs $5 in quarters at the car wash. Maybe $10. Not $600 a year.
If you are spending $600 a year on car washes, I want to start a business, and I want you, specifically you, as my customer.
I'll give a rough cost with my small sedan pre-pandemic
- Gas every 2 weeks (30 mile commute to work), fillin up the car is about $60. so $120 for gas. 120/month is 1440/year
- DMV costs are $150 a year
- car wash every few months. Let's make it monthly and more expensive than my actual washes. $50/month, 600 a year
- oil change every 3 months or so (probably less, but let's be conservative here). $70/quarter, 280/year.
- occasional repairs due to being an old car. sporadic, but let's throw in maybe $300 a year total.
- Finally, $100/month for insurance. $1200/Year.
so, ~4000/year. Given that that was a daily commute along with other short travel, it's cheaper than the idea of relying on taxis. Even if it was as cheap as $10/ride, it'd cost $4800/year to get to work alone. For my commute, it'd be more like $40-50/ride. Not even close.
ofc the rub here is that these are the costs for a paid off car, so if you don't own a car you need to factor in car payments, or the one time cost grabbing a used car. I grabbed my car for $5k before the car market (and every other market) went to hell, so it still very quickly paid for itself.