Subject: Re: Cars, year one, no commuting

I never liked driving far or dealing with traffic. Didn't mind driving itself. The most I ever did was around 20,000 miles for a couple of years when I commuted from my parents place to my first job out of college. After that it was more like 10-12K most years.

Right now I have a 2018 Hyundai Elantra that just crossed 60,000 miles. Being retired means very little driving. Most people put on miles due to the 5x a week daily commutes to/from work.

People usually don't think of the costs involved with having/buying a car.

I think my numbers are pretty low but say:

1. $35,000 for a car and if you keep it for 10 yrs that is about $10/day
2. Insurance can easily run another $5 a day (sometimes $10)
3. Maintenance can be all over the place but probably another $2/day
4. Gas $2/day

For most people having a car easily runs $20/day, $600 a month or over $7K a year.

Sure there are ways to reduce it a bit, but based on cars I see people driving, it could easily be much higher.

Our little accident is running about $10K just for our car with the damage just to the front of the car and almost all of that on the driver's front grille/headlight.

Ideally I'd like for us to go to one car at some point. We did that for about 6+ months when I left my car back east after going back to work for a few months. A few minor annoyances but certainly doable.

We do have one hybrid car but no EV. Hybrids I think are a nice middle ground although the price most of the time never worked for me based on my shorter commutes (mileage wise, not necessarily time wise).

Rich
Rich