Our New Toy | Peter Folk

This year has definitely been a big one for us in relation to expenses, firstly we bought and moved into our new home, then came our engagement and the need to save for our wedding, and throw in there a new oven which we weren’t expecting, and on top of all of this we still need to have a social life. Then our cars became unreliable and expensive to run (my fiancé’s was 24 years old!) so it then it came time to upgrade our cars, which at first seemed daunting and expensive and we just didn’t know whether we could afford to do it.

Luckily the guys at JBS Salary Packaging were able to help and explain to us the benefits of a Novated Lease. Without going into too much detail on how one works, we’re effectively paying for our new car from my pre-tax dollars (with a small contribution of after tax dollars), which helps to reduce the impact of the costs. The best part of it for us is that our car is fully budgeted for; we don’t need to set aside money for registration, petrol, maintenance etc. as it’s already being taken care of in the background from my wage.

Although it took a little bit for us to get our head around how it all works, thankfully the reliable team at JBS Salary Packaging were able to give us piece of mind that we could in fact afford a new car. In saying that, we still needed to work to find one that didn’t stretch our budget. The one thing I’m still in disbelief about is that we only took a very small hit on our savings each week, yet have a brand new car in the drive-way. Sure in light of this we could have spent a bit more on a car, but in the end the important thing was making sure we could afford our car without it impacting our other goals.

Now we’ve ended up with our new toy, the Honda HR-V. Now we no longer fight over whose turn it is to drive so the other one can sit back and relax, we now fight over who gets to drive!

– Peter Folk –