Author Archives: Oily Rag Ed'

09
Aug

Car-share clubs

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A variation to hiring a car or a cab is catching on overseas and was first tried in this country in 2007 – car-share clubs. The idea behind the clubs is to reduce the cost of owning a car and the hassle of parking it in big cities. For an annual fee or one-off membership […]

09
Aug

Vehicle costs

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Getting from A to B and elsewhere is a major cost for most, and therefore an obvious area for savings for many. It’s also one of the cost areas that have increased the greatest in the last year, with rising fuel costs and creeping ACC charges included in the annual relicencing fee. So we have […]

06
Aug

Car ownership

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• The biggest cost is resale value (depreciation). Even if you never turn the ignition key you can expect to lose 20% of the car’s value each year. So if you fork out $5,000 for a car, it is likely to lose $1,000 in value in year 1, $800 in year 2, etc. And it […]

05
Aug

Tyre codes

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Before you go about buying tyres, it might pay to know a little about what you are buying. The tyre has a lot of hieroglyphics actually say something. Here’s an example. The tires on a Toyota Corolla might be labelled: P175/65R14 81H ‘P’ stands for passenger vehicle. 175 – The width of the tire is 175 […]

30
Jul

The latest IT

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Looking for stereo or computer? The worst thing you can do is buy the latest technology. It’s invariably expensive, even if it is on special. One of the worst things you can do when living off the smell of an oily rag is to be a technology junkie – its hellishly expensive. – Oily Rag […]

30
Jul

Renting appliances

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One of the major newspapers recently ran a story about renting appliances. The bottom line is they came to the view that renting is a bad idea. We have done some quick numbers and have come to the same view – buying makes more financial sense than renting. Our quick, back of a soup-stained serviette […]

29
Jul

Jules, Napier.

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Grow NZ native spinach vine plants. They are a little known vegetable, it is a vine that is really fast growing, provides huge volumes, keeps weeds down and incredibly delicious. Simply pluck the leaves from the vine and it continues to sprout. 3-4 plants will easily keep a family fed for the winter. It grows […]

28
Jul

Oily Rag Mottos

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Here are some guiding commandments for good living off the smell of an oily rag. • A fool and their money are soon parted. – supplied by Sandra. • “Use half as much and get the product at half price!” – old oily rag saying (which we just made up now! – oily rag ed). […]

28
Jul

Mortgage repayments

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The general principle is to repay as much as you can as often as you can. • Use windfall gains to make lump sum repayments (e.g. an inheritance, the sale of a second vehicle, an unused boat or caravan, etc). • Have a coin tin. If you are collecting coins at a rate of $20 […]