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It’s fair to say car ownership can get pretty expensive, so car sharing could be a good way to save some extra money.
Trent Weekes is an avid saver, cutting costs where he can for wild adventures, like an overseas holiday to Machu Picchu in Peru.
He’s even gone without a car for a while to see what he can save. His experiment produced some interesting results.
RELATED: ‘I make $500 a month just by driving my kids to school’
“I decided not to replace my car after my flatmate wrote off my car a few years ago,” Mr Weekes told Drive.
He pocketed the payout from the insurance company and turned to public transport and car sharing platforms instead.
“I had moved from Brisbane to Sydney, and decided that I could get by relying on public transport. I live four stations from the CBD and only work in the office two days a week, so I knew I could cope without wheels for a while,” the professional event organiser said.
He stumbled across Uber Carshare and crunched the numbers, realising that with a combination of public transport, he could save $5000 a year on the cost of owning a car.
“If I had to spend $150 to hire a car for a day to get to the beach, then that’s what I did. It was an interesting experiment, because it still came out much cheaper than actually owning a car,” he said.
“I did the back of the envelope sums and realised that I had forked out $7500 in car ownership in the previous year. The maximum I had spent over the same period of time using Ubers, car shares, renting cars, trains and buses ended up coming out at $2500 for the year.”
Since switching to Uber Carshare in 2017, Trent has saved around $25,000. With his savings, he’s been able to take two trips to South America in the same year, trekking Machu Picchu and seeing the Columbian rainforests.
“I’ve actually done two holidays to South America, so I’ve probably saved enough to cover the cost of those trips.”
It was great, but Trent is the first to admit that at times it’s been inconvenient.
“I’ve got a puppy now, meaning I can’t just fly home to Brisbane to see my family. It’s easier to go by road and take my dog with me,” he said.
In search of a cheap solution, he recently decided to buy his parents’ second-hand Mazda 2.
But not one to waste cash, he just listed it for rent on Uber Carshare in the hope that others will rent it by the hour or two, generating revenue for him. He’s eagerly waiting for his first booking.
“It’s an experiment. The Mazda 2 is probably most popular for weekend bookings, so I’m expecting summer weekend bookings,” he said.
He plans to book out his car when he needs to travel back to Brisbane. He will track the earnings and might consider investing in a second vehicle, perhaps a van, down the track to also list on Uber Carshare.
“We’ll just see how it goes over time first,” he said.
The post ‘How I save money by sharing my car’ appeared first on Drive.
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