Personal transport money savers you may want to consider
If you are currently reading this blog, it is probably a safe assumption that you own a car or some sort of some other form of personal transformation. Like a motorbike, dune buggy, a uh… waveboard maybe? Chances are you also spent a ridiculous amount of money on them past the point of actually buying them. Paying way too much for fuel, repairs and random needless upgrades and parts you buy because that is the kind of person you probably are. Let’s take a dive into the world of saving money on personal transport of all kinds. After all, would you not rather spend your money on something more useful? Like a new cup holder with LEDs for your dashboard.
How to save on your already existing car
Now, after dishing out a modest amount of cash on your current vehicle, you do not want to spend more on it than necessary. There are many ways where you can make your car demand much less money from you in the long run, let’s see where you can get started. Now we’ve all heard this one, stop idling. Idling is just about as useless as a banana peeler. It is objectively more convenient, but using it barely changes anything. When waiting for someone, or just sitting in the car park or whatever other scenario requires you to not move your car for more than 30 seconds, just turn off your engine. It is borderline easier to keep it idling just so you don’t have to fire it back up when you want to move again, but it is also easier to just not pay for the fuel you just used to idle. When cruising, cruise at 50 mph. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has this to say on the matter; “You can think of it like this: Every 5 mph you drive above 50 mph is like paying an additional 20 cents per gallon of gas,”. Now this might not seem like much at first, but when you realise that saving you are just saving 20 cents every minute or so for not really doing much, it starts sounding like a pretty great deal. Now this one ties in with the previous point quite a bit, driving sensibly is a great way of on saving gas. Rapid acceleration, hard braking and speeding are the fastest ways of wasting gas. Driving in this kind of fashion has a possibility of lowering your gas mileage by even 33% at highway type speeds and 5% around the city. While on topic of the city, go for a quick top up of the ol’ fuel tank, but before you go for the routine fill-up, try and investigate if you are eligible for a credit card that offers cashback on purchasing gas. It’s literally just saving you money.
In order to prevent unfortunate situations in the middle of the night, stuck on the road with a flat tire and a lack of spares, try to always carry a spare.This saves you possible towing bills and god knows what else they will demand from you. If you are dead set on not having one with you at all times then you should at least keep an eye on your tires at all times. Do not go above the recommended max level printed on your tires, the correct tire pressure can improve gas mileage by 3.3%. If you are having trouble with sticking to this, consider investing in a tire gauge, then carrying out regular monthly checks on your tires. Even if you have a tire pressure monitoring system, don’t always trust it, get a third party’s opinion on their state. In this case the third party being your pressure gauge. Electronic systems tend to be much more fragile than the trusty mechanical ways of checking things, making them a good way to double check various things. If you are hoping on saving money on car insurance, then don’t let your teenage son or daughter drive it just yet. According to a report from insuranceQuotes.com, if the car insurance company has to consider in a teenage driver, you can expect to pay 80% more on average.
A “new” car
This often gets completely swept under the rug by just about most of the population. “Me?! Using some old wreck? Out of the question!” they say to themselves. A lot of people do not even consider purchasing a used car instead of a brand new one. This is, of course, a giant missed opportunity, because according to Glass’s Guide, one year old cars usually retail for about sixty percent of their original price. Now, forty percent off is pretty amazing and most probably agrees with your wallet a lot more than the full hundred percent. The internet is a great place to find ads about all sorts of people selling their cars. This is both amazing and somewhat disturbing for good reason. With such an overabundance of offers everywhere, it might be hard to tell which one of these cars is not missing parts of critical importance. Considering you don’t actually see the car in person, it is often worth enquiring about a meeting with the seller, and if he does not mind showing you the car in a bit more detail. If they start acting shifty and try to make excuses then you know something is probably wrong and you should attempt to find another seller. If they do not give off a bad impression, then continue with your quest of evaluating the car for yourself. Unless you yourself are a bit of a greasemonkey then chances are just giving the car a quick poke around won’t do you too much good. If you really are interested and would like to go through with the purchase, please hold off just a second longer. When unsure whether everything is in order, don’t hesitate to hire a professional mechanic to give the car a proper check. This will not be the cheapest thing you’ve ever bought but considering the amount you are willing to pay for the car, the mechanic fee seems greatly insignificant.
Maybe 2 wheels are enough after all?
Cars are great but we did just touch upon a few of their common issues. They are nowhere near perfect and with the current technology, it might just be hard to think of anything that could be used to resolve some of them. If you have grown tired of the constant car issues, why not bother yourself with constant motorbike issues instead? Motorbikes come with their own set of pros and cons which are as enticing as they might be scary. Motorbikes tend to stand out of the crowd a bit more just due to the fact that they are nowhere near as popular as cars are across the globe. With a car, it really is hard to stand out from the crowd without spending six digits on its appearance alone. Motorbikes, on the other hand, stand out due to existing. Sure there are some much more expensive and much flashier ones out there but most bikes will catch the eyes of curious passersby as long as your bike does not look like a generic moped.
Motorbikes tend to have a but of a reputation as being dangerous to ride. Not being somewhat protected in a large metal box but just out in the elements on your own 2 wheels does seem quite a bit more extreme in comparison. Cars have many comforts which you are so used to that you probably won’t even know about them until they’re gone. The spacious trunk of a car is now around the size of a lunch box, just big enough to fit your bare necessities. You also do not have a roof over your head. Come shine come sleet, cars do not feel that much different to drive if you have the appropriate tyres, with bikes however, the moment it starts raining or snowing out there, you will feel it very very quickly. Due to their slightly more dangerous nature it might be worse investing in insurance, as well as a personal injury firm. Due to the demand, anything insurance related when it comes to bikes costs a bit more than you might expect. So when finally picking one why not choose a tested and reputable one? Quittance motorbike accident claims have had a very good track record so far of and uphold a “No Win, no Fee claim” policy which allows you not have your money wasted on fruitless errands.
Despite all this, bikes have a much easier ,and cheaper, time finding parking spaces than cars. Due to their more compact and sleek shape, bikes take up much less space than cars. Not only does this give you an upper hand in parking, but also in traffic. Bikes also tend to have much better gas mileage than cars saving you a pretty penny in the long run. As a result of being smaller, they are also considerably easier to clean, saving you those drives to the carwash which are easily replaced with a few quick wipes of your trusty steed. You can also say goodbye to washing those pesky carpets that get plagued with just about every single type of dirt you can imagine in record times.
** This is a collaborative post
