Family life brings a lot of regularly occurring costs that often rip a hole through your budget. Spending money on transport is one example of these costs. If you drive a car, then your family will rack up loads of fuel costs every year, not to mention maintenance as well. So, here are some smart ways to lower your regular transport costs.
Lower your transport costs. Flickr
Be A More Careful Driver
A very easy and effective way of lowering your regular transport costs is to be a more careful driver. How does this help the old bank balance? It’s simple; careful drivers are less likely to get involved in accidents. This means you’re less likely to spend money on repairs for your car. Not only that, but it also means your insurance policy can be cheaper as you have no accidents on record. Finally, driving carefully helps keep your car in a much better condition, which extends the life of its components, meaning you don’t need to service it as often.
Change To A More Efficient Car
Sometimes, the reason you spend so much money on fuel is that your car eats up petrol like it’s a bowl of cheerios. Cars with a poor fuel economy will cost a lot more to run than those with a good one. So, sell your car and change to a far more efficient one. Nowadays, you can get used car finance as well, which takes some of the sting out of buying a replacement car and spreads the payment out. With a more efficient car under your belt, you can now use up less fuel whenever you drive. The overall savings will be quite dramatic, believe me.
Avoid Driving If You Can
I understand that this point isn’t going to work for everyone as some of you may live in areas where you absolutely need to drive your car. However, if you live in a nice urban area – where your house is within walking distance of a lot of things – then try and avoid driving if you can. If the weather is nice, why don’t you walk the kids to school? If you work close by, why don’t you walk or cycle? If you don’t want to do this every day, then you can at least do it for half of a week to cut down on fuel costs for your car?
Buy The Cheapest Public Transport Tickets
Instead of driving, you may take public transport from time to time. If so, then you can still rack up some pretty substantial transport costs. One idea here is to buy the cheapest transport tickets you can find. A good rule of thumb is to buy before you board, as it’s normally more expensive to buy tickets on a train/bus. Train tickets purchased way in advance of your travel date can also be a fraction of the price as when bought on the day. Finally, think about getting weekly tickets if you travel every day, as opposed to getting a new ticket every day. Normally, the weekly one will be much cheaper than the sum of the singles combined.
Try these tips, and your family will soon save a lot of money on your regular transport costs throughout the year!
