Thursday 12 July 2007

Staying with the one car


A few weeks ago, I mentioned about looking into getting another car via a novated lease. This idea is being driven by the rising fuel cost. The family car has a diesel engine, which has a higher servicing frequency, so the only going maintenance cost is quite high. After looking through our current situation, financially and personally, we have decided to go with the one car. However, we may decide to visit a second car again. I mean, with a growing son, I would imagine that by the time he reached the age of 4 to 5, we will need two cars.

So the reasons are
  1. Another debt - Getting another car represents another debt that we just don't need at this stage. We have just purchased a house and we want our financial position to stabilise before making another big ticket item purchase like a car.
  2. Less disposable cash - After moving into a new house, there will be certain things that we will want to purchase. Top of the list a set of curtains for the house. The back of the house has a large windowed area that only has venetian blinds, and I doubt if that is very heat efficient.
  3. Unhealthy for me - If we have a second car, it would be much easier for me to just jump into it and drive to work. Our new house is about another 15 minutes bicycle ride to work. So to promote a much healthier lifestyle for me, I should not make it easy for myself. Riding my bicycle to work would do wonders for my health.
  4. Higher chances for complication - My wife and I try to live a simple life, believing that the more complicated our lives become, the higher chance of the unexpected happening. If we have drive another car, the chance of us having an accident or having it stolen would be higher.
Once our financial position stablises, we shall revisit this situation.

Photo by Jay Simons

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