Rover 75 - It's an absolute cracker!
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From: Adrian on 1 Jun 2010 05:59 "Man at B&Q" <manatbandq(a)hotmail.com> gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying: >> It's still an inexpensive holiday. Last month we had eight days on a >> lovely CL in Shropshire. Site fees, including electric, was £100. You >> wouldn't get 3 nights in a cheapo Travelodge for that > You could. But why would you want to? Is the quality of a holiday in any way related - let alone directly inversely proportional - to the size of the bill?
From: Adrian on 1 Jun 2010 06:01 "Man at B&Q" <manatbandq(a)hotmail.com> gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying: >> > I bought my caravan new in 1998. It cost me £8600. Searching on-line >> > for used caravans I can find the same model and year being sold >> > currently for £3500 - so it has cost me £5,100 pound in depreciation >> > over 12 years, or £425 per annum. >> Except it's more than that. £8,600 invested at 4% for twelve years >> would work out at a bit under £14k. So it's actually cost you just over >> £10k - or nearly a grand a year. > Except a good proportion of that money would have been used to fund more > expensive holidays, so your maths is no better. Not at all. To compare the costs of two different options, first figure out the cost of doing neither. The cost of owning that caravan is £10k+.
From: Albert T Cone on 1 Jun 2010 06:43 Ret. wrote: > Albert T Cone wrote: >> >> Is it really inexpensive? > > I bought my caravan new in 1998. It cost me £8600. Searching on-line for > used caravans I can find the same model and year being sold currently > for £3500 - so it has cost me £5,100 pound in depreciation over 12 > years, or £425 per annum. Caravans actually hold their value very well. Fair enough. I was basing my figures on the year-year asking prices on caravantrader.com. I had imagined that people changed 'van more frequently than every 12 years, and thus live higher up the depreciation curve, but then I know nothing about caravanning. As Adrian points out, there is also some lost of return on invested capital. > I've also had to pay for servicing and insurance, of course but some > years we have used the caravan for four trips each of two weeks, so the > saving over hotel breaks is considerable. The last 4-day half-board UK > hotel break we took cost £680 (Although b'fast and evening meal was > included of course). But surely it need not cost anything like that much - certainly not if you are happy with the standards of creature comforts offered by a caravan. I recently went on a 10 day climbing holiday to Sardinia. Two of us stayed in a lovely (albeit self catered) seafront apartment in a very pleasant little town. Including travel, car, fuel, accommodation and eating out every night, total cost for two was under £400. Extending to two weeks would have pushed the cost up to less than £500. > Fuel costs are barely worth considering really. I haven't worked out the > financial 'penalty' as you put it - but it's certainly less with my > current diesel than it was with the two petrol cars I towed with. In > fact, my towing mpg in my current car is about the same as the solo mpg > in the Omega 2.0 litre petrol auto I once owned. I can believe that. > Bearing in mind that > you only tow to the pitch and then back home again, a few hundred miles > max each way and the extra fuel cost is minimal. Really? You drive all the way to the Highlands and then stay in one place? Anyway, say its a 600 mile round trip - that'll be £50. £200 a year? I'm not saying that it's a killer, but it's not nothing. > You make a fair point about the bigger car, although I tow with a Rover > 75 and many people drive cars of such a size even though they don't tow. > > Also, by driving a diesel, even when solo I'm getting considerably > better mpg than a petrol driver with a similar size car. True, but rather worse than if you were driving a smaller diesel car. You get, what, 40mpg? With a diesel Polo you'd get 60+mpg. At 10k miles per year that's another £500 a year on fuel. Larger cars are more expensive to buy new and depreciate more quickly, so that'll be a few hundred extra per year... > If we *do* decide to get rid of the caravan then we may well downsize to > a medium sized car - but we haven't decided on that yet either. So long > as my Rover is running well, it makes financial sense to hang onto it > really. You seem to like it, which in itself is reason enough to keep it, unless you can't afford it, which I don't imagine is the case. Likewise, enjoyment is reason enough to drag a caravan around the place, but I'm not sure that economy is.
From: Man at B&Q on 1 Jun 2010 07:38 On Jun 1, 11:01 am, Adrian <toomany2...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > "Man at B&Q" <manatba...(a)hotmail.com> gurgled happily, sounding much like > they were saying: > > >> > I bought my caravan new in 1998. It cost me £8600. Searching on-line > >> > for used caravans I can find the same model and year being sold > >> > currently for £3500 - so it has cost me £5,100 pound in depreciation > >> > over 12 years, or £425 per annum. > >> Except it's more than that. £8,600 invested at 4% for twelve years > >> would work out at a bit under £14k. So it's actually cost you just over > >> £10k - or nearly a grand a year. > > Except a good proportion of that money would have been used to fund more > > expensive holidays, so your maths is no better. > > Not at all. To compare the costs of two different options, first figure > out the cost of doing neither. If he want to do neither, yes. Then compare against the cost of the alternative holiday to get the marginal cost. MBQ
From: Adrian on 1 Jun 2010 07:42
"Man at B&Q" <manatbandq(a)hotmail.com> gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying: >> Not at all. To compare the costs of two different options, first figure >> out the cost of doing neither. > If he want to do neither, yes. No. You still need the baseline. > Then compare against the cost of the alternative holiday to get the > marginal cost. Indeed. |