There are a lot of ways out there to start saving money so you can make your dollar stretch. With the rising cost of living it is more important than ever to cut some waste out of your budget. Most people focus on things like cutting back on eating out or trying to lower their energy consumption. Although those are great ways to save money, there is one way that is often ignored.
Your car is costing you quite a bit of money and even though it seems like there is no way around it, you can save money on the ownership of it. There are many ways to cut some of the costs without too much effort. In this article, we will go over some of the ways you can do this yourself.
1 – Get an extended warranty
One of the biggest expenses you are likely to face when you own a car is going to come from hefty repair bills. The problem is that most major repairs happen after a certain amount of miles. This means that the warranty is usually over and you have to pay in full out of your own pocket.
The way around this is to add a little bit more money to your expenses right now to avoid a major expense down the line. You can buy an Audi extended warranty or one for any type of car that you have that will cover most of the repairs that occur during the warranty period.
There are different types of policies so shop around to find the one that covers the most you can get and still keep you on budget.
2 – Keep it maintained
Another short-term expense that will save you a lot of money later is to make sure you are keeping the car maintained. You may be tempted to save money by putting off some of the routine maintenance like oil changes or brake pads. However, doing so means that at some point in the future this negligence will result in problems that were preventable.
Go through your owner’s manual and make a spreadsheet with the routine maintenance that needs to be done and when so you can keep up with it.
3 – Do your own repairs
That routine maintenance you want to put off to save money can often be done by you so that you don’t have to spend so much on it anyway. This saves a lot of money in the short-term and even long term.
An example of something just about anybody can do is the oil change. This can cost you around $50 every time you get one and it needs to be done two or three times per year depending on the type of car you have and the age. Doing it yourself costs only what you spend on oil and the filter.
Changing your brake pads is also something that can be done yourself. You’ll need to watch some tutorials but with some patience and determination, you will save hundreds when you do this.
