Should you buy a car or not?
Owning a car can be incredibly useful, especially if you are someone who needs to travel long distances on a regular basis or lives away from regular public transport connections.
As more and more people move out of cities and into the countryside due to pollution and the opportunities presented by remote working, owning a car begins to make a lot more sense.
Although the very definition of what it means to own a car is changing, with car shares, services like Uber and Lyft, as well as the likelihood of automated vehicles on the horizon, the benefits remain compelling.
On the other hand, if you live in a city center or travel to different countries for work or leisure, having a car parked on your driveway can become a burden.
Therefore, deciding whether it is wise for you to buy a car or not isn’t the work of the moment.
Here’s a number of positives and negatives to help you come to an informed decision:
Calculate the cost of ownership
The first item on the agenda when you are debating whether to buy a car or not is how much it will cost you.
Most obviously, there is the cost of purchasing the car itself, which is likely to be the most expensive aspect of ownership. The exact price of purchase will depend on the type of car you’re looking for, but if you are worried about the retail cost, you could always look for a great used option.
On top of this are smaller costs that will become apparent once you have bought the car.
Arguably the most significant of these is car insurance. If you are struggling to pay for it, you could look for insurance providers who use your proficiency to remain safe behind the wheel as a means of calculating the quote – such as Root Insurance.
A car makes your life far more flexible
One of the key benefits of owning a car is that it can make you far more flexible. If you want to live out in the middle of the countryside, you don’t have to worry about finding a bus stop, a train station, or worry about how close the local shops are.
There is no shortage of examples of how flexible you can be if you own a car, so it is worth bearing in mind if you are sitting on the fence.
If you live in a busy city public transport is often better
However, as great as cars are, they can be a burden if you live in an urban environment. Cars are simply not suited to city centers due to increasingly stringent emissions zones, expensive congestion charges, and non-stop traffic.
Instead, you might as well take the bus or a train, which is cheaper, less hassle, and will probably get you to your destination faster.
Cars are not necessarily eco-friendly
Although modern cars are incredibly efficient, they cannot be described as the most environmentally friendly products in the world.
Even electric cars require fossil fuels to create energy and often generate a far larger carbon footprint than the equivalent internal combustion engine over a lifetime due to its construction and difficulty in being disposed of.
If this is a deciding factor for you, then it might be better to take up cycling or public transport instead.
Author: Carol Trehearn