Category: life

Have you ever written off a car yourself? I don’t mean by crashing it. I mean where it gets to the point that the cost of repairing the car and keeping it on the road far outweighs its value so you decide to write it off as not worth it.

I’ve done this many times now and I’m about to do it again. The car is worth about two thousand five hundred book price, but the cost of repairs are more than that after it developed a serious engine fault.

The problem with modern cars is they are too complex and parts are very expensive. A headlight was 900 pounds and that was just the plastic casing with no electrics or bulb inside! Ridiculous. And don’t get me started on labour costs.

Despite the car looking great there comes a time when it is not worth sinking more money into it and instead putting your money towards your next daily drive.

So what to do about the old car? If it has a serious fault you cannot sell it in good conscience without declaring it, at which point you may be lucky to get scrap value, even in a part-exchange. If however you have somewhere to store the car, one thing I do is sell it for parts. Most cars are worth more as a sum of parts than as a whole.

I like to start from the inside working out. I have used eBay, Gumtree, Facebook marketplace, and even the side of the road outside my house. I have stripped cars and used the proceeds to fund the next car purchase or project.

It can take time and you have to take the weather into consideration, which is why I start from the inside first. Inside the cabin, under the bonnet, inside the boot. Rain can ruin exposed interior parts. The last things I sell tend to be trims, brightwork, and the wheels. When I’m left with the body shell I sell that too to a scrap metal dealer. They get the V5C document, after which you are no longer the owner of the car, or whatever is left of it.

If the car was your pride and joy then some can feel depressed about breaking it up and may be willing to take a loss in return for selling it on cheap as a project to a new owner who may keep it on the road. I tend to be more mercenary though and sell it for as much as I can get. I once sold a classic, one of only a handful left in existence. I couldn’t find a collector interested so I sold it to someone who wanted the parts, especially the engine. The rest was scrapped.

Sometimes the best thing is to just write the car off yourself.

It can be stressful dealing with an individual or business where you have received very bad service or a product and they are not prepared to resolve the problem. They already have your money, and as far as they are concerned the matter is not open for discussion. Go away, we have your money already!

I’ve seen people stress-out and even lose sleep from worrying and agonising over the wrong that has befallen them. The higher the price paid the more stress is felt. This has happened to me many times and it took me a while to develop a method of dealing with it. Firstly I try to avoid such situations by thoroughly researching the individual, business, product, or service before buying, but should it happen to me again I try to look at the problem from another person’s perspective.

Have you ever seen a friend or family member fall into this situation and you are happy to help where possible? Notice how the stress and anxiety that they are experiencing is not experienced by yourself? That is because you have no skin in the game. You have not lost anything. The bad service was not experienced by you and as such you are able to view the situation with a clear mind and approach it carefully and with no distractions.

The trick is to become like an observer to your own situation. To look at the problem and to think, ok this has been an expensive lesson, let’s limit the loss to what it currently is, park it for now, take a moment, and then look at it as a problem that you can attack at your own pace and that might result in a win of some sort. What have you to lose? View it as a game. The worse case scenario is that you are no better off than you are now.

By looking at the problem as if it did not happen to you but, say, a friend, you are looking to see how you might go about resolving it or getting some or all of your money back allowing yourself to have more focus, a clearer head, free from the distractions of stress and anxiety.

I have used this technique to fight fines that were falsely applied, government red tape that led to being over-taxed, fraudulent costs levied against me, outright theft, and purchases made where I did not receive what was paid for.

Worrying can get in the way of having the clear head you need to tackle such problems. Life is a game and we all occasionally land on the wrong square leading to someone taking your money in return for nothing or not what was agreed. Don’t get mad, stressed, or anxious, get focused!

When I was younger I wish I’d understood finance more. I wish I knew how pensions worked, and taxes. I wish I’d understood how I could have made up years towards the state pension, how I could have reduced taxes with self assessments, paid off a mortgage faster, and benefited from tax-free investments.

I learned all of the above the hard way. By being overly taxed and having a rubbish pension. By learning what I should have done after-the-fact from others.

They should have taught this stuff in school, but they didn’t. Instead we are taught maths that we will never use. Why not teach us how to balance an account, how bank accounts work, about loans, pensions, and investing? Teach us something that will be useful when we enter the world of adulthood and financial obligations. Or at least point us in the right direction.