The procrastination was a result of the verb used above however: research.
This kind of post when done right requires a certain amount of research on various numbers and other things. Things that I wasn't terribly inclined to do since devising the topic. Still don't actually. It's just not my style for a blog that essentially acts like a journal of my journey to personal freedom and other things that niggle at me and my brain.
So forgive me if my writing on this topic remains fairly vague and general. Because I simply didn't do all that much research into the topic. But I have a good reason for that.
It didn't take all that much research and number crunching for me to realize that I can't afford to own a vehicle, new or used.
Recall how earlier this week, I broke down my spending and savings for the first quarter of the year?
Did you see that massive pie piece that was my debt repayment for that quarter? 30% of my income goes to my debt. That's 30% of my money I don't end up ever seeing because it is going to someone else either to pay off the principle in which I borrowed from them, or to pay off the interest that accrued on it. Basically as a result, I really only spend and/or save 70% of my small enough income.
That on its own should be reason enough why I can't afford to own a vehicle, at least not until that chunk of cash is freed from the evil grips of debitors and mine at last. But I did manage to get a little further in my "research" of how much of my income it would eat up for me to own a vehicle.
Referring once more to the magic pie of my Q1 expenditures and savings, I spent about 8% of my income on transportation: a sum that includes metropasses, a few taxi trips, tokens and car insurance (the latter point is something I will revisit later). In actual dollar values, I spent around $600 on transit in three months, or about $200 a month.
That's actually quite a lot of money gallivanting about town, says some people as you look at my numbers. In fact, are you really sure it's cheaper to just own a car?
Well let's start with where do I put the car. Parking at my apartment every month costs $50 to park outdoors. $75 if you want indoor parking, which may or may not be worth it for the fact that you won't have to worry about weather affecting your vehicle's lifespan. Then there's parking at my workplace. It's free after 6PM and on weekends, but for two of the three week rotation I'm on, I start work before 6PM on weekdays.
Frankly, I'm not sure how much the cost is because I don't pay for parking at work right now, so let's just aim low and go with $40 to park at work, which is a very low guess.
Now there's gas, which is fairly pricey in this province and town that I happen to live and work in. Not to mention, I live a solid 20 km away from work because well... it's bloody expensive to live downtown. So let's loosely guess that a full tank of gas will last me two weeks and cost around $50 each trip to the station. That's $100 dollars a month spent on travel.
At it's lowest, it leaves me $10 a month for every other cost, at it's most realistic, I've already spent over $200 a month simply to drive. And that doesn't include the cost of insurance (I currently pay $100 every three months to be a secondary driver on my dad's car. I'd imagine it'd be much higher once I become a primary), paying for the yearly plate sticker, maintenance and if my eyes become too big for my wallet, financing for a new vehicle, which on its own, could cost me way more than $200 a month anyway.
What can I cut above to make up the extra cash in transportation? Food? Debt repayment?
All of this tells me only one thing: I'm at the very least three years from vehicle ownership at my salary and with my debt right now. That's the earliest in which I can pay back my student loan debt, and even then... that's the ideal. I'm looking at more or less four to five years realistically.
So how expensive is it for me to own a vehicle? Too expensive. And why I own a metropass and live within transit lines.
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