Oily Rag: Even parked your car costs you money

Young Mum has a conundrum - one many families will relate to. "We have silverbeet growing all year round. It's easy to grow, and free, which is even better but, unfortunately, it's not a favourite with our young children.

Can anyone help with great ways to introduce silverbeet into meals so it is more palatable to young tums?" If you can help Young Mum, drop us a note at www.oilyrag.co.nz or send your suggestions to Young Mum, C/- PO Box 984, Whangarei.

Now to the latest tips from readers:

Amy from Whangarei writes: "I dilute flavoured milk by diluting it one-to-one with plain budget milk. It's better for you and saves money. My kids still love it."

Maude from Wanganui has a tip on scones: "I use self-raising flour, sugar to taste if adding dried fruit, a pinch of salt and old milk. Put in COLD oven. Turn oven on to 200C. When the scones look ready, test to make sure. No butter needed. While waiting for the scones to cook, mix up a batch of biscuits or a cake. These can be cooked after the scones when the oven is at full temperature, cutting electricity costs."

J. Fairhall from Nelson suggests selling fruit from your trees and using shampoo when you run out of laundry powder - it works just as well.

Travelling is a major cost for most families, and therefore is an obvious area to save money. It's also one of those costs that has shown the greatest increase in the last year, with rising fuel prices and creeping ACC charges included in the annual relicensing fee.

So we have been reviewing motoring costs using figures published by the AA late last year. We have looked only at actual cash costs incurred in any one year. We have excluded depreciation, which is a whole story in itself and would make the figures much worse.

Fixed costs (registration, insurance, warrant of fitness) range from about $1100 for a small car (under 1500cc) to $1650 for a large car (+3500cc). You pay these costs even when the car is in the garage. Fixed costs represent roughly about a third of the total cash cost for the average 14,000km-a-year motorist. Running costs make up the other two-thirds and, of this, between two-thirds and three-quarters is fuel. The petrol cost alone of running a small car is 13 cents per km, 15 cents per km for what's called a compact vehicle (1501cc to 2000cc), 21 cents for a medium-size car (2001cc to 3500cc) and 25 cents for a large car.

Plus there is the cost of tyre wear, repairs, oil and so on, which takes the running cost per km to 20 cents, 22, 28 and 33 cents for a small, compact, medium and large car respectively.

Just think of your bank account clicking down every time your odometer clicks up and you will get the general idea of how the numbers work.

The other thing to consider is the cash cost of a vehicle you are not using. Having a large vehicle (like those used to tow a boat or caravan) just sitting in the garage for a year costs about $1600, or $30 a week. A large car that does only 2500km a year actually costs $1 a km in cash for every km travelled! On top of that, time erodes its value so when you eventually sell it the loss in resale value is crystallised.

Frank and Muriel Newman are the authors of Living Off the Smell of an Oily Rag in NZ. Readers can submit their tips online at www.oilyrag.co.nz