Dealing with unexpected Car costs. MOT

I’ve had a car since I was 21 years old and it’s given me so much freedom.  There is so much to consider when buying a car, from the initial cost of the car to the running costs to those unexpected costs.  My first car was a used car, nothing flashy an old maestro which got me from a to b and home again.  Something that was really important to me when I was attending college and starting work.  I was fortunate enough that my parents bought me my first car and helped out when I needed.  However I was determined to go it alone as much as possible. 

I secured myself a part-time job around college so that I could pay for the running costs.  I’ve been fortunate enough that since my first car I have always had a car.  I’m not saying its been easy because it certainly hasn’t.  There have been many unexpected costs from punctures to new car batteries to breakdown call outs.  Even at regular services and MOT’s there have been unforeseen costs.  

One thing I have become good at doing since my children have arrived is budgeting.  It means I can spread out the cost of things like car insurance, diesel and even car tax.  I also try and put a bit aside towards the cost of my MOT and service.  However there are still costs that arise that I haven’t factored into my budget.  

Last year I had a few unexpected costs for my car.  Initially at the MOT it was discovered a lot of work needed doing to get it through the MOT.  The things that needed work on weren’t things that I could have done myself and were required to ensure the car was still safe to use.  The cost of the work was quite a bit more than I had put to one side so it meant that until I had worked out how to pay for the work I couldn’t have it done.   It meant that I had to sit down with dad of 3 and look at our finances to see where we could find the money to have the work done.  In the end the only option was to secure a loan in order to have the work done.  I rally a lot on my car so I really needed to get the work done.  With the loan secured I was able to have the work done within two days which was a huge relief. 

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end to my car drama’s last year.  Six months after my car passing its MOT my car wouldn’t start one morning.  We had gone out to go on the morning school run and the car wouldn’t start.  I quickly realised that one of the children had knocked one of the interior lights on as they had got out the car the night before and it had drained the battery.  I ended up calling out breakdown out who managed to jump-start the car and I then had to drive around for over an hour charging the battery.  Everything was fine until a couple of weeks later when the battery decided to die on my again.  This time in the hospital car park, in fact I wrote about it at the time and I ended up buying a new car battery which again was an unforeseen cost.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are times when things happen which you just can’t prepare for and you have to do the best you can to resolve them when they do. 

Disclaimer:   this is a collaborative post, however the content is 100% my own. 

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