Just by thinking about how long you will need to work in order to earn the amount you need to pay the car loan off.
Buying a car is a huge turn-off but many people who don’t even need a car are buying it to fuel their Ego.
Am I better off spending that $1000+/mth elsewhere?
e.g. Car ~$73,000, monthly income ~$3,800. Are you willing to trade about 19 months of your life just to own a car that will last you 10 years? Then trade some more of your life to fund ownership costs?
99% of the time you can grab anywhere every day (even if more than to and from work) and still come up spending less per month.
I used to own a car for convenience, which adds up if you make more than 2 trips a day. Plus I bring my dogs around. Plus I really appreciate sleeping more each morning before work, which is relatively near but difficult to travel to by public transport.
Even if I grab (assuming 2x$20 )a day, it only works out to be ($40X5 working daysX4 weeks) $800 a month. Not to mention the fact that I can choose to take public transport on some days if I want to. It’s probably a more financially woke idea to not buy a car. Unless you really need it xd
Is owning a car a bad financial choice in Singapore?
I can grab/gojek to work and back every single day and it still costs less than owning a car. The other potential uses for a car just don’t add up to justify it.
A car is good if you can afford it. Problem is, that many people think “affording” it means being able to meet monthly instalments and maintenance. I already have a few friends in trouble right now. They could meet the monthly payments, but those amounts were also a big chunk of their now non-existence pay.