Budgeting
Fitting a car into a household budget, and the bills that sneak up on it.
A car budget for a college student
Four semesters of car costs laid out side by side, with the lumpy months marked and a way to fund them.
A car budget when a baby arrives
Every line of an illustrative car budget, before the baby and after, and why each one moves or stays put.
Budgeting for a teenager behind the wheel
A letter to the parent of a new driver about the money: insurance, the car, and who pays for what.
Building a car fund, envelope by envelope
Five envelopes, five sinking funds, and a plain method for deciding how full each should be.
Car costs in retirement
A composite couple in three scenes: the last working year, the first retired year, and a decade on.
Car costs on an irregular income
Lean month, normal month, flush month: a playbook of car-cost rules for incomes that won't sit still.
Going down to one car
Every consideration for selling the second car, placed on a two-pan scale, with the arithmetic for the priced ones.
How big a car repair fund should be
A three-layer method for sizing a repair fund from your own car's facts instead of a round number.
How much of your income a car payment should take
Sixteen computed payments on a bar ladder, and the case for picking your percentage before anyone else does.
Paying yourself a car payment
A loan balance falling, a savings balance rising, the same monthly amount — and where the two lines cross.
Setting up a car budget spreadsheet
Four tabs, every column and every formula, row by row — a car budget you build once and keep for years.
Splitting car costs as a couple
50/50, by income, or by use: three ways to split a shared car's costs, run on one household.
The 20/4/10 rule, tested
A popular car rule of thumb, run against five households. Two pass. The failures are more useful.
The car bills that arrive once a year
A year of irregular car bills on one calendar, and the arithmetic that turns them into one steady amount.
The car money glossary
Loan, lease, insurance and ownership terms from car paperwork, defined in plain English, A to Z.
The car you can afford vs the car you're approved for
A lender's yes and your own yes answer two different questions. An essay on the gap between them.
The true cost of a free car
An itemized receipt for a hand-me-down car's first year. The price line says zero. The total doesn't.
What a car really costs per month
A month of car debits as a bank statement, then what the statement quietly leaves out.
When money is tight: what to cut first
Car costs ranked from cut freely to never cut, one rung at a time, with the reason each sits where it does.
Your real cost per mile
A fill-in worksheet for your car's true cost per mile, with a worked example beside every line.