The crowd is going to downvote me to the center of the earth.
Every single time the latest Certificate of Entitlement (COE) results drop and Cat A or Cat B hovers around the $125,000 to $130,000 mark, r/Singapore turns into a massive wailing wall. People complain that the “middle class is being priced out” and that it’s “impossible to survive” without a car. Let’s be completely real for a second: you are living on a 50-kilometer-wide island with one of the most efficient, hyper-connected public transport systems on the planet. Calling a car a “necessity” here is peak entitlement.
Let’s break down the math of your “necessity.” If you buy a basic Japanese sedan or a trendy Chinese EV today, between the vehicle cost, the inflated COE, road tax, insurance, interest rates, and daily ERP, you are easily burning $2,000 to $3,000 a month in depreciation and operating costs alone.
You know what else costs $2,000 a month? Taking a premium private-hire car or a GrabPremium everywhere you go, every single day, without ever having to look for parking at a packed mall, worry about road tax, or stress over getting a dent in the multi-story car park. But you won’t do that. Why? Because you can’t flaunt a Grab booking history to your relatives during Chinese New Year or use it to impress your dates.
The biggest lie Singaporeans tell themselves is the family excuse. “Oh, I need a car because I have toddlers and elderly parents.” Sure, if you have three kids under five and a bedridden relative, I’ll give you a pass. But half the people making this excuse have a single, perfectly mobile primary school kid and parents who still go for 20km morning walks. You don’t need a car to transport them; you just don’t want to squeeze on the MRT like the rest of the working class.
We complain about high living expenses, stress, and the inability to retire early, yet we willingly chain ourselves to a depreciating metal box that legally self-destructs after ten years. If you are earning $8,000 a month and sinking nearly 30% of your take-home pay into a car loan just to save 20 minutes on your morning commute from Punggol to the CBD, you don’t have a transportation problem. You have a financial literacy problem and a deep-seated need for validation.
The government’s “car-lite” vision isn’t failing; it’s aggressively succeeding by pricing out people who want a car for status rather than actual utility. If you can truly afford it without flinching, go ahead and buy your status symbol. But if buying a car means you have to budget tightly on food, stress over parking fees, or complain on Reddit about the price of petrol, sell it. Take the bus, take the train, and stop letting a piece of paper from LTA dictate your self-worth.
Rant over. Go ahead and start bidding for your next financial trap.