Andy Hough

My Total Cost of Car Ownership – 16.8 Cents Per Mile

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I kept track of all the expenses associated with my 1997 Toyota Camry so that I could calculate the total cost of ownership per mile. I bought the Camry for $3500 in October 2009 and traded it in for $1600 in May 2012. During that time I drove the car a total of 71,802 miles. My total cost of ownership came out to 16.877 cents per mile. Buying a used car saved me a lot of money. I don’t think it would be possible to ever get that low of a cost per mile with a new car.

I spent $1376.91 on repairs. The biggest repair expense was $421.87 for replacing the timing belt. That was also the only repair where the car broke down and caused a transportation problem. All of the other repairs were scheduled ahead of time so that not having the car wasn’t a problem. I think the car was pretty reliable. Even with a new car you might have at least one breakdown when driving 71,000 miles.

The biggest car ownership expense was gasoline. I spent $6504.70 on gasoline for the car. That is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on gas, but it could have been a lot worse. The Camry got about 25mpg around town and about 30mpg on the highway. I wish my van could get anywhere near as good of MPG as that.

The other car expenses were oil changes, tires, parking, property tax, sales tax, registration, licensing, parking, inspection, and car washes. I tried to get every single expense associated with the car. I probably missed something along the line, but I think the final figure is at least 99% accurate.

The final cost per mile of 16.877 cents is pretty good, but the actual cost is even better. I could have deducted the $500 for repairs we got from the insurance company after getting rear ended at a stoplight and I probably should have since some of that money was spent on the car and the accident did reduce the trade-in value of the car. I also was reimbursed for some of my miles driven by a couple of my employers. The non-profit I worked for gave me something like 27 cents per mile for reimbursement. The Census Bureau gave me the IRS rate which I think was 55 cents per mile at that time. I didn’t keep records though of how many miles I received reimbursement for. A very large part of the miles driven was for business purposes and was deducted from our income tax. I could look up that info from our tax returns, but I’m too lazy to do so right now. The reimbursements were more than my actual cost per mile so I actually made money from them. If I were to figure the cost of reimbursements the total cost per mile might get down to about ten cents a mile. For now I’ll stick with the 16.877 cents per mile figure since it is already pretty good.

How do You Spend Unexpected Money?

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After deciding this weekend not to attend FinCon due to a lack of money, Monday brought me quite a bit of unexpected money. I got a check in the mail for $450 from an ad I placed way back in April. The advertiser had stalled on paying a couple of times and I had pretty much given up on getting paid. Not only did they finally pay, they threw in an extra $50 for the delay. As long as the check clears I suppose the delay in getting paid was worth it.

The other bit of unexpected money came from a savings account I’ve had for a couple of years. Since I open savings accounts in order to get the bank bonuses, I usually have several accounts. I knew I had this savings account, but I hadn’t checked the balance in over a year because I had forgotten the password and security key. To get the password and security key replaced required calling customer service which is usually a pain. Since I was thinking I only had about $5 in the account, gaining access to it wasn’t a priority. On Monday I finally got around to contacting customer service and was pleasantly surprised to find out I had over $400 in the account. This was my own money and I always had it, but since I had forgotten about the money, it seemed like I had just made $400.

My first thought was that I could now afford to attend FinCon. After just a little more thought though I decided to stick with my original decision to skip FinCon and use the unexpected money to pay down my debts. Attending FinCon would have used up most of the unexpected money. Since I had already accepted the fact that I wouldn’t be attending, it wasn’t that difficult to decide not to attend even though I now had the money. Paying off my van loan is my priority for my money now.

I did splurge a little with the money though. I bought an Acer 10″ tablet for $150. My reasoning is that this will be a good entertainment source when I’m living in my van. I can view Netflix and other movies on the tablet and easily recharge it from the van battery. Since I got such a good deal on the tablet, I can probably resell it for the same price if I decide it isn’t worth the money.

I think I did pretty well with this unexpected money. How do you spend unexpected money?

Skipping FinCon

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I have been looking forward to the Financial Bloggers Conference ever since attending last years’ conference, but I have decided not to attend. Given my current financial situation, the conference is a luxury that I can’t afford. Between the conference ticket, gas, parking, and a possible hotel room the conference would cost several hundred dollars. There would be some irony in going into credit card debt to attend a financial blogger’s conference. I’d like to have my van paid off and some money saved by the end of the year and attending the conference would be a serious setback to those goals.

I could just get a refund of my FinCon ticket, but I’d like to let somebody else use it. If you are interested in buying my FinCon ticket, leave a comment or email me. I’m selling the ticket for the price I paid for it, $111.75, which is a good discount to the current price of $149. It looks like the transfer process should be pretty easy.

For all of those who are attending FinCon, I hope you have a good time and I’ll see you next year.

Selling Gold for Cash – My Experience

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You have probably seen tons of advertisements from place offering to buy your gold the past few years since the price of gold has skyrocketed. These ads made me wonder how much I could get for a couple of small gold rings I had, but I never did anything about it because I doubted the rings were worth much. The other day I saw an ad with a coupon offering $10 for getting your gold evaluated whether they buy your gold or not. Since the store was close to my gym I figured it would be worth walking over and getting my rings evaluated.

The cash for gold place I went to was a jewelry store. When I went in I was directed to a desk to get my gold evaluated. The jeweler first tested my gold with a magnet too make sure it wasn’t just gold plate. The rings passed that test, which I wasn’t sure that they would. He then looked at the rings with a loupe and found that they were marked 10 karat. That is the lowest grade of gold there is, but at least the rings weren’t just gold plated. He then rubbed the rings on a stone and put a drop of solution on the stone which confirmed the rings were 10 karat gold.

The jeweler then weighed the rings on his scale. Unfortunately, they were very small and lightweight rings and only weighed 2 grams together. I was offered $20 for the rings plus the $10 bonus for the coupon and I accepted. It seemed like a pretty good deal since I wasn’t going to be using the rings anyway.

I later did the math and it was a fair offer. At first glance it didn’t seem like a good deal. After factoring in that there are 31.1 grams in a troy ounce and 10 karat gold is only 41% pure, the price I received for my gold was fair. I probably should have done the math before selling the gold since I couldn’t have done much after selling it if I didn’t get a good deal. Since it was such a small amount I wasn’t too concerned.

It seems that selling any gold you have laying around can be a pretty good deal. Especially if you have a coupon. Has anyone else tried selling gold?

The $100 Weight Loss Challenge Results

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The challenge ended on August 15th and I did not meet my goal by the challenge deadline. I didn’t even come close. I’m basically the same weight as when I started the challenge. It may now have been the best time for a weight loss challenge since I did have some issues going on that led to comfort eating. But based on my past challenge results it may not have made any difference. I don’t think I’ll be doing any more challenges. From now on instead of writing about what I intend to do, I will actually do something and then write about it.

If you were one of the first 20 people to leave a comment on the challenge post, please leave a comment here letting me know whether you’d prefer an Amazon gift card or Paypal cash. You don’t need to put your email in your comment, but do use the email you want to get your gift card or cash out to leave the comment. I’ll try to get all the cards and cash out on Monday. If I don’t hear from you regarding your preference within the next few days then I’ll send you my choice of card or cash.