Car Owners: Do You Make More Than $7,650?

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If you are a car owner, does your pay match your car ownership status? If you don’t have a car, how do you know whether you can afford one? In this article, Salary.sg proposes using $7,650 as an income guideline for car ownership in Singapore.

We all know that owning a car in Singapore is a luxury. A small saloon costs around $50k while a family MPV can easily set you back by $80k or more. Don’t forget you also need to pay for road tax, car insurance, servicing, petrol, ERP, parking fees, cleaning, grooming and what have you.

If your income is not high enough, it may be a stretch for you to fund the costs of owning that set of wheels in Singapore.

According to the Household Expenditure Survey (HES) report recently released by the Singapore Department of Statistics, only 38% of households here own a car.

From the popular Salary.sg household income comparison tool, we can find out that the top 38% highest earning households make more than $7,650/mth. Though this group of 38% may not be exactly the same as the car-owning 38%, we argue that this is the group that can well afford a car. If this group can’t afford a car, we don’t know who can.

Hence the $7,650 guideline.

So, if you and your spouse own a car but make a combined salary of less than $7,650 a month, it may be a wise thing to do your sums again.

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53 Comments

  1. Haha…. everyone can own a car in Singapore, if they want, I know many friend and friend of friend get rich in lottery and then bought a new car. Some ppl are smart they first save and then invest and then plan and eventually got enough money for a car.

    it all depend what you want. I got sick to clam in a crowed bus and MRT train and got my life risk on reckless taxi driver. I prefer to drive and not worry of travel at anytime after midnight which public transport are less avaliable.

    Some ppl spend more in liquor then in Car hahahaaaa

  2. I never had a car when I was in Singapore but when I came to the US for college it became a necessity to have a car. It was striking how much lower the cost of maintaining a car is in US compared to in Singapore. But more striking is the difficulty with which one can access public transport outside the few big cities. I miss Singapore’s public transport a lot even though I have a car now.

    My point is, I think lots of people may readjust their perceived cost and benefit analysis in owning a car in Singapore if they had lived long-term in another location where public transport is not readily available. Owning a car may be a necessity for some people, but for most Singaporeans the public transport system is sufficient and should be treasured (even though I took it for granted myself when I was in Singapore). As to the pleasure of driving, that’s something that only each person can determine for him or her self.

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