Conundrums, Tips and Motor Vehicles

 Read more Oily Rag articles by Frank and Muriel Newman

This week Young Mum asks for help, we have money saving tips from readers, and we journey down the road of rising transport costs.

Young Mum has a conundrum – one many families will relate to. “We have silverbeet growing all year round. It’s easy to grow, and free which is even better, but unfortunately it’s not a favourite with our young children. Can anyone help with great ways to introduce silverbeet into meals so it is more palatable to young tums?”  If you can help Young Mum, then drop us a note at www.oilyrag.co.nz or send in your suggestions to Young Mum, C/- PO Box 984, Whangarei.

Now to the latest tips from readers.

Amy from Whangarei writes, “I dilute flavoured milk by diluting it 1 to 1 with plain budget milk. It's better for you and saves money. My kids still love it.”

Maude from Wanganui has a tip about scones. “I use self raising flour, sugar to taste if adding dried fruit, a pinch of salt and old milk. Put in COLD oven. Turn oven on to 200 degrees. When the scones look ready, test to make sure they are cooked. No butter needed. While waiting for the scones to cook, mix up a batch of biscuits or a cake. These can be cooked after the scones when the oven is at full temperature, cutting electricity costs.”

J Fairhall from Nelson suggests selling fruit from your back-yard trees and says using shampoo when she runs out of laundry powder works just as well.

Travelling is a major cost for most families, and therefore an obvious area for savings money. It’s also one of those cost areas that has shown the greatest increase in the last year, with rising fuel prices and creeping ACC charges included in the annual re-licensing fee.

So we have been running the motoring cost numbers using figures published by the AA in late 2011 and this is what we have come up with. In all of these figures we have only looked at actual cash costs incurred in any one year. We have excluded depreciation, which is a whole story in itself and would make the figures much worse.

Fixed costs (registration, insurance, and warrant of fitness) range from about $1,100 for a small car (under 1500cc) to $1,650 for a large car (+3500cc). You pay these costs even when the car is parked up in the garage. Fixed costs represent roughly about a third of the total cash cost for the average 14,000 km a year motorist.

Running costs make up the other two-thirds, and of this between two-thirds and three-quarters is fuel. The petrol cost alone of running a small car is 13 cents per km, 15 cents per km for what’s called a compact vehicle (1501cc to 2000cc), 21 cents for a medium sized car (2001cc to 3500cc) and 25 cents for a large car.

On top of that there is the cost of tyre wear, repairs, oil and so on which takes the running cost per km to 20 cents, 22, 28 and 33 cents for a small, compact, medium and large car respectively.

Just think of your bank account clicking down every time your odometer clicks up and you will get the general picture of how the numbers work.

The other thing to consider is the cash cost of a vehicle you are not using. For example, having a large vehicle (like the ones people use to tow a boat or caravan) just sitting in the garage for a year costs about $1,600, or $30 a week. For example, a large car that is only used for say 2,500 kms a year actually costs $1 a km in cash for every km travelled! On top of that, time is eroding its value so when you eventually sell the vehicle the loss in resale value is crystallised.

Frank and Muriel Newman are the authors of Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag in NZ. If you have a favourite tip then share it with others via www.oilyrag.co.nz or post it to Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag, PO Box 984, Whangarei 0140.

* Frank and Muriel Newman are the authors of Living Off the Smell of an Oily Rag in NZ. Readers can submit their oily rag tips on-line at www.oilyrag.co.nz. The book is available from bookstores and online at www.oilyrag.co.nz.