How To Save Up For A Car As a College Student

 Today I'll share useful tips to save up money to buy a car for college students effectively.

There's some particular reason why a car is mandatory for college students. Usually the reason is mainly because of the lifestyle, young blood always wants to look flashy in front of everyone, especially their friends.

But there's also college students that really need a car for their transportation.

We all know that college students are slim on budget, so buying a car either new or used is a big deal for them.

Except if you're from a rich family, that buying a car is like buying chips, in this case you're not.

So like it or not you need to save money to afford a car and that's why I made this article about how to save up for a car as a college student, so make sure you read this article till the end and hopefully these tips will help you achieve your goal.

Saving Money For Buy a Car

How To Save Up For A Car As a College Student Effectively

These are the tips to save money for college students who want to buy a car.

Make a Plan

Make a plan about how much money you need to buy the car, how much you can save in a month, and how long you will be saving. By making a savings plan it will make the progress of the process on track.

Focus On Your Goal

Set your mind on your goal to buy a car and stick with that in the process.

With that you will be more enthusiastic in saving and if you don't set a goal on your saving process, you will lose enthusiasm in the process. 

Saving In Early Month

Usually in the early months most college students receive money from their parents or for those who already have a part time job will receive their salary.

So it's wise to allocate some of that money into your savings, not much, maybe just 10 to 25%.

Avoid Unnecessary Spending

Sometimes we like to spend money to buy something useless. Maybe you think that stuff is cheap and will not cost you a lot of money.

But if you just reallocate that money into your savings to buy a car, that will be really helpful and useful instead of just wasting it on something unnecessary and useless.

Cut Down Budget For Hangout

I know that hanging out with your friends or your crush is important and you need it as a human being, but if you do that often that's not great for your budget.

Especially if you try to save money, so less hangout equals more money into your savings.

Stop Smoking

For you who smoke, maybe it is a good time for you to quit smoking. It's not just good for your health but also for your wallet.

As you know that the price of cigarettes is expensive, so instead of using your money to buy cigarettes you better put it into your savings. That would be really meaningful for your life.

Adopt a Frugal Lifestyle

If you want to save up more money, you can adopt a frugal lifestyle. Frugal lifestyle can be started by reducing monthly electricity needs, reducing basic needs and many other ways that we can apply to live frugally.

So basically the point of doing a frugal lifestyle is to cut down your daily or monthly expenses and use that money for saving purposes. Maybe you can read my other article about how to save up on groceries, if you are interested you can read it here.

After you read those tips, maybe you thought in your mind, is it better to buy a car or lease a car. Well I will try to give you an answer to that question.

Is It Better To Lease Or Buy A Car For A College Student

It depends on you, let me explain how. Brand new cars will get depreciation dramatically in the first few years, but that can be avoided by leasing a car. But that doesn't mean that leasing a car is always beneficial. If you lease a car for short-terms it always benefits you because the cost of leasing is cheaper than buying a car, for medium-terms 2 - 4 years the cost of leasing and buying are the same, but for long-terms leasing a car is not beneficial because the money you end up to pay is more than buying a car.

And also if you lease a car you need to agree on a lease agreement which usually includes how many miles you can drive the car, damage that done to the car, or even excess wear of tires.

So the verdict depends on what you will use the car for and how far you will drive everyday.

If you need a car just for style or looks flashy in front of your friends and you just use it on saturday or occasionally, the choice is you better lease a car.

And if you need a car for daily use, taking you from point A to point B without concern how the car looks, and drive far distance everyday, the choice is you better buy a car. 

And if you can't afford a brand new car or don't want to afford a brand new car because of the depreciation, there's always used cars as solutions, used cars not always bad, used cars sometimes can be really a stealth deal if you choose it correctly.

That's it from me and thank you for reading this article of mine about how to save up for a car as a college student, and hopefully this article can give you benefits.

Blake Winters

Hello, my name is Blake Winters and I'm the founder and owner of MentlinTech. With over ten years of experience in fixing gadgets, technological and electronical devices, I'm an expert in repairing a wide range of electronics, including computers, laptops, iPhones, Macs, printers, and more.

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