semi-necessities: transportation

i know that is totally not a thing, but i didn't know what else to call this next section of budget categories i will address. so these are the things that are definitely not necessities, but they're not pure wants either. today we will talk about all things transportation.

jake's car is paid for. in the future, we plan to be able to say that about all vehicles, always. but right now we are still paying for my car. financing a car is about one of the least financially responsible things to do, in my opinion. i don't say that judgmentally; i'm in the boat with ya. i just feel so stupid continuing to pay for something that is losing value every day. a few months ago, we looked into getting a less expensive car, and essentially spending whatever amount we could get from the sale of my car to purchase one. but we decided against that, because my car (a honda accord) is one that holds its value much better than others, it's safe, will be a great family car, and gets pretty good gas mileage. so we took as much money out of savings as we felt comfortable with, and used it to pay a chunk down on the car. we refinanced it with a credit union. we did opt for a longer repayment term (five years), but we are paying the same amount we would have had we financed for four years. it still saves us over $100/month from our previous payment. again, our goal now is to pay off the student loans. when those are paid off, if we still owe on the car at that point, it will become our new goal. so for the sake of transparency here: we owe about $4500? on my car. we pay $115/month. the car is valued at about $13,000. so while our current situation is not our ideal, it's a lot better than the "norm". as i mentioned in the post about savings, we do plan to pay cash for our vehicles in the future. if we need a car and only have $1000 saved, well, we'll be driving a pretty lousy car until we can afford a better one :) but we will be driving our current cars until they plumb won't run anymore.

we have a local insurance agent, and ended up saving a lot over what i was paying previously. i have no idea if it's the best rate possible. ideally we would check around every few years. we do pay our insurance once a year, which is the most financially responsible way to do it. we put back about $75/month, so by the time the bill comes, we will have all we need to pay it. if you decide to do this (and i think you should if at all possible), it will cost a chunk up front. we have both our cars and our home all with the same people, so that also saves.

we put $10/month back for car maintenance. would be nice to do more, but we just can't right now. we would love to get it built up and keep $500 on hand at all times but we definitely aren't there yet. we use this money now for regular maintenance, but at some point we will need to have some saved up for other things as our cars age.

both our cars get good gas mileage - anywhere from 27-35 mpg, depending. we drive straight drives, which helps a little, and enables us to be in a little more control over mpg. we basically try to be smart about our gas usage. i don't make random trips to just one place; i combine stops in one general area and take one trip. we budget $40/month for jake (he gets paid mileage through work, but he has to drive 30 miles to get to his first stop, which is not covered by work), and $100/month for me. those are really not high amounts. but by being smart about it, we can make it work.

so that's that on transportation. the whole not-financing-cars thing is a touchy subject, i am aware. at the very least, please, PLEASE don't ever be satisfied with or adopt the mindset that you'll always have a car payment. you do get to decide that, you know.