Think about this?
How much do you spend on a vehicle?
Have you ever thought about how much your transportation costs you per year?
Do you calculate the payment + fuel + maintenance?
Part 1
I’ve been reading a lot of blogs recently about how people save money and what they have been doing about their savings for 2009. I want to share how my husband and I have saved a lot of money. We own used vehicles.
Some of the blogs talk about saving money to buy a new car or update a 10 year+ car. Which is perfectly fine but I want people to think about it very carefully and realize they can save by buying or repairing a used car.
First let me mention a couple of things. My husband loves to play with vehicles. He started to learn how to play with cars and trucks when he was 5 years old. Over the years he has owned different types of vehicles including cars, and SUVs. We’ve learned over the years that used older high quality cars or SUVs are the most cost effective.
Here is a wonderful example that I want to share. My husband loves Isuzu SUVs. They are very good vehicles. We’ve had very good luck with them and each of them are older and have lots of mileage on them, however, you wouldn’t know it by riding in them.
Our neighbor had an accident with a deer over a year ago and left is Isuzu Rodeo in his driveway. He felt it couldn’t be fixed. This fall he and my husband talked about it and he offered my husband the truck for $200! I’m not kidding. Here is more information about how my husband fixed it on his forum. Click here.
We estimate this 1999 Isuzu Rodeo would have cost anywhere between $2000 to $5000 for buying off the street. With the basic repairs and maintenance it cost us about $1200 plus time to put it together.
Would this be cost effective for someone that doesn’t do repairs? We estimate that would be. We also know that not everyone has a great mechanic available either, but there are ways to find good mechanics. Thanks to the internet!
How much does this 1999 Isuzu Rodeo cost us? Right now we have put 3,000 miles on it and it has cost us 73 cents a mile! Not too bad!
In Part 2, I will talk about how to calculate the true cost of a vehicle and why it makes sense to buy a used vehicle. Plus, this is the time to buy used vehicles because they are the cheapest.
