After much consideration I have decided to get rid of my car. My plan is to get rid of it after my last final for the semester in early December. Next semester I’ll only have class on Monday afternoons. That is the only place I’ll really need to go. I’ll be relying on public transportation to get there and anywhere else I want to go. Since I’m living with my GF I should be able to combine any trip I need to make with our other trips. I’ve been reluctant to give up my car because I haven’t wanted to get up early twice a week to take the bus to school. Now that I will only have to take the bus once a week and not have to get up early to catch it I don’t have much excuse for not getting rid of my car.
I’m not sure whether I’ll sell my car or donate it. My plan is to try to sell it for a low price and if it doesn’t sell then I’ll go ahead and donate it. Since I won’t make enough money to itemize I won’t get any benefit from donating the car but I’d still like to see it go to a good cause.
Getting rid of the car won’t save me a lot of money because it has been paid off for a long time and I don’t drive much anyway. I’ll save $20 a month on car insurance and and another $40 or so in gas and some more from not having to make repairs or pay taxes and registration. I will have to pay for bus fare and I might have to pay something to be added as a driver to my GF’s insurance although I will rarely be driving her car. My net savings should be somewhere around $60 a month.
Even if I get nothing for this car my cost per mile based on my purchase price alone is less than two cents per mile. I bought this car cheap and put over 90,000 miles on it. I didn’t keep complete records of my repair, maintenance, gasoline and other costs so I can’t figure my total cost per mile. I am sure that it was much lower than average though. Someone buying an average priced new car would still have a higher cost per mile than me even if they put a million miles on their car. I definitely received good value out of the purchase of this car.
Wow! Only $20 a month in car insurance?? Where I live insurance starts at a minimum of $110/month. For $20/month it would actually make more sense to drive than to take public transit here – a basic bus pass to get from my house, to school, and to work is about $100/month, or $2.75 – $3.50 a one-way trip.
I’m in Missouri. The insurance is liability only. My insurance was a little more when I lived in Texas and quite a bit more when I lived in Nevada although it was never as much as $110 a month.
A monthly bus pass here is $40 a month. It will probably be cheaper for me to just pay for the trips I take though. It is $1.25 each way for most trips here.
Is it really worth selling or getting rid of it? Only $60 in savings doesn’t seem like that big a deal, especially with needing to pay for bus trips etc. And what happens if you then need another car? You’d have to lay out a lot more than 60 per month for something.
Your net savings would be about $60 per month and if the car is getting older / high mileage as you imply you will save the cost of repairs as well. My experience has been that even just maintenance starts to get expensive when cars start getting older.
I would guess that in the long run you will end up saving quite a bit more than $60 / month.
Kelly and Matt- It is true that a savings of $60 isn’t that much but that is a very conservative estimate. I wouldn’t be getting rid of my car if it weren’t for the fact that I feel it is becoming unreliable. It has required a lot more repairs this year and I don’t think it is worth putting more money into this car.
Also I will get other benefits from getting rid of the car. I’ll have green benefits from not burning gas. I’ll have health benefits from walking more and I’ll probably save some more money by not being able to drive places to spend money.
Hi,
If you’re still looking to donate your car, I know someone nearby that definitely needs a vehicle. She’s 22 and pretty much on her own with no help from her family and no money. She received good grades in high school and is trying to go to college and works part time, but she’s barely making ends meet and is stuck out in Oak Grove because she has no transportation. Our church congregation looks after her and helps her out but it’s really not enough. I write this because I am trying to help her out in any way I can, and I can definitely promise you that if you are looking to donate/get rid of the car, it would literally have the potential to change her life. And increase your karma 🙂
Get back with me if you’re interested. thisbodyholdingme12345 (at) yahoo (dot) com. Thank you for reading this excruciatingly long comment 😀