Transportation

I've got a confession to make. Three weeks into my study I witnessed an accident on the highway. Two cars right before me crashed into each other flipping one of those cars on the side. Luckily there where many people coming to the rescue and the people in the car weren't injured heavily, but it was a great shock to see it happen front-row.

Thumbs up!

With me driving around in one of the smalles car imagineable (and me being 1.89 and a thirty-something guy where most thirty-something people crave to drive around in bigger and faster cars) on the Dutch highway, my left mirror showed me the nose of a car remarkably resembling my own Green Hornet (actually, it was exactly the same type and color car). When the car drove past me, me and it's driver (a tall guy more or less my age) both smiled and gave each other a big Thumbs Up! What a fun moment, two people who are probably both more concerned about what matters in life and saving for better times instead of spending all day struggling to keep up with our ego's. That made my day!

Mileage

Recently I had to fill up my gastank for the second time since I had my 'new' car. 

The Big Car Hussle

It's going to happen. A 1m89cm guy is going to be driving around in a Dihatsu Cuore soon.
I might have to cut a hole in the roof but hey, it's summer anyway.

Little more cash, little less spending

I am lucky for being employed at a stable employer. Of course, no more need for employment is one of my long term goals (starting with no longer being financial dependent on work but being able to pick the jobs I like for how long I like them), but untill that day comes I can't really complain. If I do my job I'm supposed to do I get a small raise every year, and with our company having a new collective work agreement everyone will get 3,2% more from this day on and another 1% next year february.

This leaves me with the possibility to pay off more of my debt. I am thinking about raising the step up to 600 a month, where this was 500 a month. I think this will hardly be a difference in my current budget / spending, but over the next 18 months I still have to go that will mean I'm done about 3 months earlier.

Be careful what you wish for

Remember my last post, stating "this car will never ever fail on me"? Well. It did.
Not some major issue that got fixed for around 500 euro's. Still hurts, but my emergency fund had no problem fixing that.

Yet ever since I calculated my possible savings by changing cars of quit driving a car completely this has been on my mind. Not like a light breeze but like one hell of a big hammer hitting me in the head every time I blinked my eyes.

By simply switching cars I can save >1K yearly. That means 50K over the next 50 years. That seriously adds up. Even if this new vehicle gives up on me every 5 years that would still be profitable. And as I stated above... even a Volvo can break down.