February 18, 2021 5 min read
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Buying our first car is a challenge, even with the financing facilities and credit plans that exist to launch one, people, especially millennials , have a hard time saving to pay for it without suffering with their finances at the end of the month.
Additionally, you have to add the expenses for gasoline, possession, service, verification and others that not many consider when planning a budget to buy a car. Undoubtedly, paying for your first car requires a huge effort, but if you do the math well, you can avoid some unnecessary expenses that would be a very good help to save and get that model you have always dreamed of.
To help you out, Mercado Libre’s vehicle marketplace shares some of these expenses that are gradually emptying your pocket without you noticing, so that you can finally buy the car of your dreams quickly and safely.
Friday chelas
Image: MercadoLibre
With confinement, you may have realized the benefit of not going out every Friday to party, but if you’re already dying to go back to the bars with your friends, think twice: a single six of beer costs an average of 100 pesos, so that taking every weekend would cost you 5,200 pesos a year. Now, you would have to add up the times you go to a bar, where the average ticket goes from 150 to 800 pesos, so your annual expense could increase to almost double, practically a monthly payment or a very good insurance for your new car.
The unlimited plan of your smartphone
Image: MercadoLibre
Telephone plans increasingly offer a greater amount of data at a “relatively affordable” price: on average, Mexicans allocate 360 pesos a month to mobile connectivity expenses, although if your phone rent is added to that, your spending could increase significantly up to 1,000 pesos a month (12 thousand pesos a year), if it is a high-end team.
In addition, these plans usually last more than a year, so you would have to postpone this time to release your car. To do this, you could consider switching to a prepaid system and staying with your team for at least a couple more years.
Cigars
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To begin with, this habit is not healthy at all and does not bring any benefits in the medium and much less in the long term. Now the accounts: if we consider that the average monthly expense of smokers is almost 300 pesos per month, at the end of the year we would be talking about an approximate saving of 3,600 pesos that could well help you pay half the monthly payment of your car, or well 4 tanks of 40 liters of gasoline, the equivalent of 3 or 4 months of fuel depending on your trips.
Your streaming accounts
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You probably don’t want to miss out on the best releases of each month, however this could be draining your pockets too much. A subscription to Netflix costs 1,668 pesos per year, if to that you add the annual cost of Disney + (159 pesos) and Spotify (115 pesos), your spending on digital entertainment per year goes up to 5,600 pesos. Like your phone plan, it is convenient to do without any of them for a while until you no longer have debts.
Your morning super coffee
Image: MercadoLibre
If, still in quarantine, you did not stop ordering your extra large coffee with whipped cream through delivery apps, you should know that this little luxury can also be the difference to release your new car. The average ticket in this type of shopping ranges between 40 and 80 pesos , and if from Monday to Friday you continue to order your breakfast at home, a year you would be spending approximately 10,400 pesos that would not fall badly on your budget. It is best to take advantage of loyalty programs or limit yourself to buying your smoothie once a week.
Surely, there are more than one of these habits in your daily routine, so your spending is much higher than you imagine: if you do the sum of these small “luxuries”, a year you would be saving approximately 35 thousand pesos , which you can use to distribute them in your monthly payments or pay a good insurance that takes care of your investment.
Although doing without any of these expenses is a sacrifice, it will be quite satisfying to be able to pay for the car that you have always dreamed of with more calm. If you are dying to get it, remember that in Mercado Libre’s vehicle marketplace you have the possibility to take your car away from online and find more than 100,000 options that fit your budget.