When you want to have a car, whether it's an electric car or a conventional car, of course, you have to save money for quite some time. You will save money to pay for the car down payment, as well as money to pay off all installments until your dream car is really yours.
However, did you know that apart from down payment and installment payments, you also have to start preparing money for some unexpected big expenses that come after you have a car?
First-time Car Owners, What Should You Prepare (Save) Money for?
1. Parking fees
When the car leaves the house and you drive it to reach your destination, you definitely have to pay for parking. There are indeed conditions where you don't have to pay a parking fee, for example if it has been borne by the company where you work. However, in general you are the one who has to pay your parking fees.
Going to the mall, you must definitely have to park. If you only park for an hour, you may only have to pay a small parking fee, but if you are at the mall for hours then you have to spend more. What if you have to go to the office every day and have to park the car for hours each day? If calculated in a month, you have to pay quite large parking fees.
To know the estimated cost of parking per month, make a list of needs where you need to use a car. Estimate the cost of parking in a day and then calculate the total.
2. Car fuel costs
Before having a car, you probably took public transportation or rode a motorcycle to get around. Small vehicle fuel consumption is certainly less than large vehicles such as cars. So, if you have a car, never forget to always set aside money every month to buy fuel. And keep in mind, the bigger the cc of the car, the more often you have to spend money to buy fuel.
Just like parking fees, to determine how much money you have to allocate for car fuel, you need to know within a month where will you drive your car to?
3. Car service fees
Like a house that needs regular maintenance, cars also need it. In general, there are 2 types of car services, depending on the needs of the car. The first is regular servicing to ensure the car's performance is always at its best. The second is additional service needed when the car has a problem.
Car service costs vary because it also depends on the kilometers, apart from, of course, the type of service desired. You need to spend hundreds of thousands and even millions of rupiah for car service.
4. Car taxes
Don't forget that cars also have taxes. For motor vehicle taxes, there are 2 types of taxes that need to be paid, annually and every 5 years. The tax amount is also different. The more luxurious your car, the greater the tax. Prepare several million rupiahs to pay taxes each year.
Car tax should be paid on time. Because if not, you have to spend money to pay a fine of 25% per year. This is why you have to prepare money in advance so you can pay your car tax on time.
Allocate Money for Multiple Car Expenses Using the Jago Pockets
It's quite a lot of money that needs to be prepared once you have a car, isn’t it? For those of you who own a car for the first time, so you won't be surprised and don’t bite off more than you can chew, you can start allocating money for the many big expenses above. No need to immediately set aside large amounts, because what is more important is the consistency of saving.
1. Create Jago Pockets to regularly allocate monthly budgets
To manage finances more practically and easily, you can use the Jago Pocket. 1 Jago Pocket = 1 bank account. For the 4 expenses above, you can create 4 Jago Pockets. In other words there are 4 separate accounts to avoid funds for one need being mixed with funds for other needs.
2. Set aside money automatically using Auto-Budgeting
If you want to be free from the hassle of allocating funds to each Pocket every month, you can use the automatic saving feature, namely Auto-Budgeting.
Create a Saving Pocket first to start saving money. But you don't need to worry, when you already have sufficient amount of money later and you have to spend money on the expenses above, all you have to do is change your Saving Pocket to a Spending Pocket.
3. Lock your Pocket to be more disciplined
Sometimes, when your savings is filled but you don't use the money, you can be tempted to use it for other needs. To prevent this from happening, you can lock the Saving Pocket. Because if the money is used up, when the time comes you have to pay the annual car tax, the money might not be there.
Besides being able to be more disciplined in saving, there are many advantages to locking a Savings Pocket. The interest rate is higher than the Saving Pocket. You can also add money to your Locked Pocket at any time. Plus, you can lock your Pocket for as long as you like, can be 17 days, 35 days, 100 days, but it cannot be more than 6 months.
Save Emergency Funds in the Jago Term Deposit
Once you have a car, you need to anticipate scenarios such as the car might be hit by a fallen tree during bad weather, the possibility of having an accident in the middle of the road, etc. We don't want any of them to happen. However, we must always be ready.
For that, you can start building emergency funds as a solution. When you have an emergency fund, you can immediately use it when something unexpected happens with your car. An emergency fund is also very useful when you haven't insured your car.
The Jago Term Deposit is an ideal instrument for saving emergency funds because it can be withdrawn prematurely without penalty fees. The disbursement process is instant via the Jago application, and the money goes directly into the Main Pocket.
Jagoans who are ready to buy a car or have just bought one, you can start saving for all the expenses above.
