Not telling you how to live your life....... but could I offer you a contrarian view to car
ownership?
I think to learn to drive is a great skill and one you should aquire. Indeed in our modern society car ownnership is seemingly 'esssential' unless you live in a big town with public transport and/or you don't need to travel.
Oldies like myself learned when roads were quieter and insurance/petrol a LOT cheaper. But: as a youngster (I presume), I warn you the costs of owning a car are huge. Once you own one, for the first few years - at least until you are over 25 - you will be a slave to your car. And once you a car it's pretty difficult to give up (make it sound like an drug addiction don't I!
).
I used to live in the Lake District. There was a young girl (19) I worked with whose life revolved around her car. She had a car loan £150/month, car insurance £150 /month, she comuted from Carlisle to Keswick 60mile r/t (you guesed it) £150 per month in fuel. Now I would make a very conservative guess and say that she should budget (at least) £100 month for tyres/servicing/AA membership etc. Now that lot adds up to £550 per month (and excludes depreciation). Thats a lot of money. £6600 per annum! To depress you even more (slightly incorrectly because obviously she could offset the tax against her personal allowance) she was having to earn £9565 (less tax & NI) to pay for the costs of running a car! Strange thing was other than driving to work she made no use of it (boyfriend had a fully funded, inlc. petrol, company van). And I would of thought the wages she would have received in a city (Carlsisle), logically, would have exceeded those in a small country town (Keswick)?
Point I'm trying to make is that once you have learned to drive, which as I say is a great skill, if you delayed purchasing a car for a few years and had the discipline to save the money you would otherwise have spent you might be able to aquire a car outright, whilst still benefiting from (hopefully) having aquired a few years driving experience (In insurance terms although you wouldn't be earning NCB you would have a hopefully unblemished driving licence with say 3 of 4 years driving 'experience').
Think of it this way by not buying you could save (example above) £150 month car loan plus £150 month insurance ie £300 per month or £3600 per year. (obviously you will be having to pay for public transport and say occasional hire of a car) after 3 years, with interest, you'd have more than £11,000.
£11000. Buys quite a nice car or possibly be the deposit on a house? (Bet I sound like your Mum & Dad!)
Just a thought.
