{"id":3023,"date":"2010-08-20T14:59:26","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T18:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/?p=3023"},"modified":"2010-08-20T14:59:26","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T18:59:26","slug":"how-much-to-spend-on-a-car","status":"archive","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/frugal-articles\/how-much-to-spend-on-a-car\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much to Spend on a Car"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3024\" title=\"car\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.befrugal.com:444\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/car.jpg\" alt=\"car\" width=\"358\" height=\"269\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We all know that a house is the largest purchase for most households. But not everybody realizes that a car is not just the second largest purchase, but also the second largest annual expense for most households -- ahead of food and healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>Exactly how expensive is a car, you ask? Well, here is how the average American household spends their income:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Housing: 32%<\/li>\n<li>Cars: 18%<\/li>\n<li>Groceries: 7%<\/li>\n<li>Healthcare: 6%<\/li>\n<li>Entertainment: 6%<\/li>\n<li>Dining Out: 5%<\/li>\n<li>Clothing: 4%<\/li>\n<li>Everything else, combined: 22%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ever wonder how much you <em>should<\/em> spend on a car? There are many online calculators that let you calculate how much, based on a proportion of income. Well that is all fine and good, but what about taking people\u2019s lifestyles into account? Obviously, if you drive 4 hours a day then you should spend more on a car than if you drive 1 hour a week.<\/p>\n<p>Another way to figure out how much you should spend on a car is to look at the amount of time you spend at home versus the time you spend in a car. In other words, the annual cost of your car versus the annual cost of your house should be proportionate to the amount of time you spend in each.<\/p>\n<p>Take a look at our new calculator to figure out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/tools\/how-much-to-spend-on-a-car\/\" target=\"_blank\">how much to spend on a car<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Photo courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hugo90\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hugo90<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/frugal-articles\/how-much-to-spend-on-a-car\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" class=\"excerptimage alignleft wp-post-image tfe\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><\/a><p>We all know that a house is the largest purchase for most households. But not everybody realizes that a car is not just the second largest purchase, but also the second largest annual expense for most households -- ahead of food and healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>Exactly how expensive is a car, you ask?<a class=\"read-more\" title=\"How Much to Spend on a Car\" href=\"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/frugal-articles\/how-much-to-spend-on-a-car\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[288,304],"class_list":["post-3023","post","type-post","status-archive","format-standard","hentry","category-frugal-articles","tag-calculator","tag-car"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.befrugal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}