BMW 323i Coupe
I wanted to share this, as it may help some people from making the same mistakes as I did, and if it stops just one person, then it was a message worth sharing.
My very first car was a P reg Vauxhall Corsa, given to me by my mum as she had inherited my grandads car when he passed away. After owning the car for about 5 months, I managed to fill it up with oil, and this being the first time I'd done this and not knowing anything about cars at the time, I managed to kill the engine by over filling it too quickly.
So I decided rather than get it fixed, as it had done 100,000 miles, I would get a newer car and treat myself, so I went to a local dealer, saw a Naughty Blue 04 plate Clio, I thought it looked stunning, it was the perfect car for me. Inexperience didn't help me here, I looked at it, and said, yep I'll have that one please mate.
The price on the car was £4,800. It had 35,000 on the clock and 2 previous owners. I put a £450 deposit down on my credit card - first mistake. And had a five year finance plan to pay £112 a month with a slightly bigger payment at the end, meaning I was paying about £7,500 just for the car, that was a s**t load of interest.
I could afford to pay that each month for the car, and the insurance and petrol, and I was only working part time, earning a basic of £300 a month, but pretty much doubling it every month.
The car was gorgeous, but I was inexperienced. I joined this site, I learnt how to do things on the car myself, the more experienced I become, the more I did, saving myself a lot of money. I fixed the broken window for £25, a hell of a lot cheaper than what I would have been robbed for at the Stealers.
In the time I owned the car, it had it's faults, things broke very often, poor build quality possibly. Possibly my fault for not inspecting the car thoroughly.
Last February I decided enough was enough, I had around £12,000 worth of debt, the car finance, credit cards, student loan and my overdraft. The bills were bigger than I could handle, I was paying off the bare minimum each month. Don't get me wrong though, I never missed a single payment on my finance.
I took a loan out to consolidate my basic debt, the amount I had to pay back for the loan was the same amount I would have had to pay for the car just on it's own, so this way I saved myself about £2,000 just in interest off the car.
Since then I've paid a large chunk of my loan off, but even now that I am earning a good average pay, my outgoings are higher than I could ever have imagined.
The biggest mistake I have ever made, was buying a car on finance, I ended up paying £5,600 for the Clio, so only £800 over the top of the asking price, but I still made big mistakes.
I am glad I made them for the perspective that I have learnt so much, but I wish I hadn't done it. If you can afford to buy a car on finance, you can probably afford to save up and get one and save yourself the debt.
Just because it is manageable doesn't mean it will always work out for you, if you consider car finance, consider the pressure it put me under, hopefully people won't slate me for this, and I hope I have saved someone from making big mistakes.
My very first car was a P reg Vauxhall Corsa, given to me by my mum as she had inherited my grandads car when he passed away. After owning the car for about 5 months, I managed to fill it up with oil, and this being the first time I'd done this and not knowing anything about cars at the time, I managed to kill the engine by over filling it too quickly.
So I decided rather than get it fixed, as it had done 100,000 miles, I would get a newer car and treat myself, so I went to a local dealer, saw a Naughty Blue 04 plate Clio, I thought it looked stunning, it was the perfect car for me. Inexperience didn't help me here, I looked at it, and said, yep I'll have that one please mate.
The price on the car was £4,800. It had 35,000 on the clock and 2 previous owners. I put a £450 deposit down on my credit card - first mistake. And had a five year finance plan to pay £112 a month with a slightly bigger payment at the end, meaning I was paying about £7,500 just for the car, that was a s**t load of interest.
I could afford to pay that each month for the car, and the insurance and petrol, and I was only working part time, earning a basic of £300 a month, but pretty much doubling it every month.
The car was gorgeous, but I was inexperienced. I joined this site, I learnt how to do things on the car myself, the more experienced I become, the more I did, saving myself a lot of money. I fixed the broken window for £25, a hell of a lot cheaper than what I would have been robbed for at the Stealers.
In the time I owned the car, it had it's faults, things broke very often, poor build quality possibly. Possibly my fault for not inspecting the car thoroughly.
Last February I decided enough was enough, I had around £12,000 worth of debt, the car finance, credit cards, student loan and my overdraft. The bills were bigger than I could handle, I was paying off the bare minimum each month. Don't get me wrong though, I never missed a single payment on my finance.
I took a loan out to consolidate my basic debt, the amount I had to pay back for the loan was the same amount I would have had to pay for the car just on it's own, so this way I saved myself about £2,000 just in interest off the car.
Since then I've paid a large chunk of my loan off, but even now that I am earning a good average pay, my outgoings are higher than I could ever have imagined.
The biggest mistake I have ever made, was buying a car on finance, I ended up paying £5,600 for the Clio, so only £800 over the top of the asking price, but I still made big mistakes.
I am glad I made them for the perspective that I have learnt so much, but I wish I hadn't done it. If you can afford to buy a car on finance, you can probably afford to save up and get one and save yourself the debt.
Just because it is manageable doesn't mean it will always work out for you, if you consider car finance, consider the pressure it put me under, hopefully people won't slate me for this, and I hope I have saved someone from making big mistakes.
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