RE: [pf] working 50% more, just to support car ownership.

At 12:59 5/3/2001 -0800, Suzanne Spencer wrote:
> An eye opening experience for me was seeing that the total costs for our
2 15+ year-old vehicles in 2000 was $2000. Our goal is to reduce that even
more (by relying on them less). 
>
At 12:55 5/3/2001 -0800, Priscilla Richter wrote:
>David,
>I just read recently that the latest statistics are that annual car usage
averages $6880 in the US.
>
>I'm not sure what all that entailed, but I think that it included
insurance, licensing, running [gas & oil], and I believe
purchasing/depreciation.
>

· Yes, depreciation (the thousands of dollars difference between what it's
worth if sold at the beginning of the year and what you could get for it at
the end of the same year) is the biggest factor, for those first 3 to 5
years from new. The figures I posted from the NZ AA analysis, and what
Priscilla said above (likely from the Consumer's Institute magazine
Consumer), are both calculated for those early years.

· As Suzanne and David Appell have pointed out, /if/ you can keep your
vehicle going for 10-15 years (or more; how old was tully's little car?),
without having to start paying for really major repairs, then depreciation
is reduced to noticeably less than the other fixed and running costs.

· Note that the "fixed costs" are (mostly) unchanged, even if you use the
car little. Halving the distance you go per year does reduce your
out-of-pocket costs, but it takes much less than half off the whole cost of
ownership. Less use has other good reasons, like reducing how much fossil
fuel you use (and how much CO2 that use produces).

· When my wife and I came back to Ontario Canada from our two years
voluntary service in Ghana (West Africa) in 1970, we decided the only
transport would be: "four wheels and an engine"! We bought an old Ford
Econoline van, and I circular-sawed out some holes in the steel sides where
we put in some windows, and Bera painted apple trees on the two sides (one
with red apples and green leaves, the other just a few bare black branches).

· I think we sold it rather than running it into the ground because we
began our family /after/ coming back to Canada, and as the kids grew there
was nowhere they could sit safely, in that literally-2-seat van. But we've
_never_ bought a new car, for that reason above. A straight waste of money.

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davdd.geo/index.html#top
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