And?

Trying to sort something out and would appreciate some input. I'm separated and soon-to-be-divorced. I'm moving to a place that I could use public transportation for about 90% of my travel needs quite easily and there are those daily car rentals for the other 10%.

With my newfound situation, I'm working hard to get myself on a good, independent financial track. I'm cutting expenses everywhere I can, but I'm still not able to save much every month. I have enough to cover my expenses, do 401k employer match, etc.
reverse phone lookup nba reddit pcpartpickerMy question is: Should I keep my car or sell it? Short-term, it seems like public transportation is the way to go, but what's the best long-term decision?

Car Value: ~$12500 Outstanding Loan: ~$7500 Monthly Payment: $450 Interest rate: ~1.5% Last Payment: ~May 2017

Gas: $150/month Needs a scheduled maintenance: $750

Public transportation estimates: $10/day = $300-310/month + daily car rentals as needed for emergencies and trips to the vet

thankyou
my issue has been solved

Anonymous wrote:$7,500 is a really huge monthly car payment.

Unless it is for a custom Rolls.

I read that as $450 monthly payment. Poor formatting from OP.

$7,500 is a really huge monthly car payment.

Unless it is for a custom Rolls.

1) can you sell for more than you owe?
2) do you need to pay to park regularly?

If the answer to either of these is "no", I’d keep the car.

Been car free for a decade now, and I love it! Strongly recommend. Couple things to think about:

1) Trying on the car-less life, as recommended by a previous poster, makes a lot of sense to me. Spend a month never using your car, see how it feels!
2) You mention the vet. That was something I worried about, as I have two cats, and figured I’d use Zipcar for that. Turns out - regular cabs are happy to take animals in carriers. Have never had one pass me by. So that may be less of a deal than you think.
3) The one thing that used to drive me nuts was donating to Goodwill. I hated throwing away perfectly good clothes, but I wasn’t willing to shell out for Zipcar to drop stuff off. I’ve since discovered https://www.givebackbox.com/, and it’s been great. You basically mail stuff to charities, and corporate partners pay your shipping.
4) Zipcar (or presumably other car share services) didn’t end up being worth the money for me. There’s an annual membership fee, if you’re going to a social activity where you’ll be there a few hours it gets really expensive really fast, and I found I was only using it once or twice a year, so I cancelled. Instead, we do traditional car rentals fairly often (4-5 times a year?) and find that’s more cost effective. You can generally get a Budget car rental for $30-40 per day, no annual fee, and you can pick cars up from Union Station or National Airport, both of which are right on the metro. Sign up for “Fastbreak” so you can skip the counter.

Anonymous wrote:Cars are expensive, especially considering repairs and other surprises that can come up.

Are you able to bike or combine biking with public transportation? In DC, you can put a bike on a rack on the front of a bus or bring your bike on the metro if it’s not crowded. It can make a bus route work a lot better and provide a backup option if the bus is unreliable.

My wife and I are car lite, it's MUCH easier now that I bike regularly for transportation. The bike gives a lot more flexibility especially on weekends when transit is less frequent (and some bus lines do not run at all) Obviously one can use Uber or car rentals for that, but biking is cheaper.

Don’t forget to include the costs of insurance, registration, parking, and repairs. There’s also the opportunity cost of having equity tied up in the car (i.e. how much could you earn in interest per year if you invested the $5k).

I think AAA publishes numbers on the average cost of owning a car and I think it’s around $8,000 per year considering all those types of things.

Cars are expensive, especially considering repairs and other surprises that can come up.

Are you able to bike or combine biking with public transportation? In DC, you can put a bike on a rack on the front of a bus or bring your bike on the metro if it’s not crowded. It can make a bus route work a lot better and provide a backup option if the bus is unreliable.

Edward11 wrote:Trying to sort something out and would appreciate some input. I'm separated and soon-to-be-divorced. I'm moving to a place that I could use public transportation for about 90% of my travel needs quite easily and there are those daily car rentals for the other 10%.

With my newfound situation, I'm working hard to get myself on a good, independent financial track. I'm cutting expenses everywhere I can, but I'm still not able to save much every month. I have enough to cover my expenses, do 401k employer match, etc.

My question is: Should I keep my car or sell it? Short-term, it seems like public transportation is the way to go, but what's the best long-term decision?

Car Value: ~$12500 Outstanding Loan: ~$7500 Monthly Payment: $450 Interest rate: ~1.5% Last Payment: ~May 2017

Gas: $150/month Needs a scheduled maintenance: $750

Public transportation estimates: $10/day = $300-310/month + daily car rentals as needed for emergencies and trips to the vet

I think a lot of this is going to depend on the particular place you live and form of transit. If you are living someplace metro accessible, I would get rid of the car. You should be able to use pre-tax income for your transit pass. I’ve also found that supplementary uber rides are much cheaper than car rentals, but I’m not sure how that works with a dog. Good luck!

Look before you leap. Try the public transportation plan for a month or two. I once had a public transportation plan for a certain position all worked on paper, but in real life the trip required a line change and backtracking that cost a lot of time. Weather issues showed up more often and more severely than anticipated. Coming back after hours when working late was a very different experience security-wise than the planned rush hour travel. So the plan didn't work out. I was glad I still had my car.

Trying to sort something out and would appreciate some input. I'm separated and soon-to-be-divorced. I'm moving to a place that I could use public transportation for about 90% of my travel needs quite easily and there are those daily car rentals for the other 10%.

With my newfound situation, I'm working hard to get myself on a good, independent financial track. I'm cutting expenses everywhere I can, but I'm still not able to save much every month. I have enough to cover my expenses, do 401k employer match, etc.

My question is: Should I keep my car or sell it? Short-term, it seems like public transportation is the way to go, but what's the best long-term decision?

Car Value: ~$12500 Outstanding Loan: ~$7500 Monthly Payment: $450 Interest rate: ~1.5% Last Payment: ~May 2017

Gas: $150/month Needs a scheduled maintenance: $750

Public transportation estimates: $10/day = $300-310/month + daily car rentals as needed for emergencies and trips to the vet