What's the real cost of my driving?

Today I've been trying to sort out my car insurance and see if becoming a member of the IAM will do much to put a dent in my premiums. I'm actually waiting for some information to come back to me, so while all my car details are out, I thought I'd take a few minutes to do something I've been curious about for a while: work out as accurately as I can just how much it's costing me to run this car.

Depreciation
My current car is a 2005 Ford Mondeo 2.0TDCi 115bhp and I've had it just over a year and a half (since 12th November 2009). I bought it for £4250 back then. Depreciation is hard to work out, so I looked for the closest matching car on AutoTrader and tweaked the numbers appropriately. By my reckoning the car is now worth £3300, which means a depreciation of £950 (22%).

Straightforward Costs
Car insurance so far has cost me £918.42 (a full term, and a partial term with an added premium to my insurance coming from the old Corsa), Car Tax £250 (2 x £125), but if you were accounting for this strictly, you would take into account that part of this is a prepayment. Accessories and miscellaneous expenses that I've bought for or spent on the car came to £346.13. This is for things like new wiper blades, bulbs, membership of the AA and IAM etc. MOTs & Services came to a total of £1327.88, but a large chunk of this cost was from one massive bill from Lindsay Ford - an expensive lesson on the virtues of shopping around.

Diesel
In 609 days of motoring, I've burnt 2238 litres of diesel, travelling 22500 miles, and an average MPG of 47 (maximum achieved was 55). Total cost is £2829.67. The price of diesel has risen steadily over the last 18 months as shown by the graph below.

Cost Per Mile
All things considered, motoring for me is costing me 29.5p per mile. This puts business mileage in a new light, since they only pay 30p per mile, it doesn't seem like such a boon anymore.

More startlingly, spread over time, cost per day is £10.87! Now, this doesn't account for the mileage given back to me from work, but this is a great deal higher than anticipated.

Bottom line is, travelling anywhere is costing me approximately 30p per mile. A lot of this is fixed costs that can't actually be saved by keeping the car at home - about 13p per mile is burnt up in Diesel. But the fixed costs should be attributed somewhere, and a per-mile basis is as accurate as I can think of that is practical to work out myself. So, put into real terms, 30p per mile means that's £4.60 every time I want to go to Ultimate Frisbee training in Belfast, £5.96 every time I visit Bangor, and £26.79 to visit my Grandparents in Armagh and (on a full cost per mile basis as outlined above) to take the car down to Cork for the Cork Open will cost £156! (£65 of this is diesel costs alone).

When I pay for things like insurance and tax or even diesel, it's hard to keep a grasp of precisely how much each journey is costing. If I keep this figure of 30p per mile in my head, maybe I'll walk a few more journeys, or dust off the old bike. This is a scary amount of money!

Fantasy Football Season 2010-11

Last weekend saw the end to the Premier League, and more importantly, the close of one of my favourite niche hobbies, Fantasy Football! I'm not what you'd call an avid football fan; if it wasn't for Fantasy Football, I'd probably struggle to name 5 current premiership players. But with a Fantasy Football team on the go, I now have a reason to be interested in Match of the Day. Man, I am in competition with people who actually support football teams!

This year was a tussle for second place in a local league I play with some of my Ultimate Frisbee buddies. First place was sewn up by the wizard Ben McFeeters. Someone clearly travelled back in time and gave him a sports almanac. 8,066th out of 2.4 million is to be reckoned with. So I was very happy to settle for a (not very close) second place.

In other leagues, I'm still on the old NI Water league, despite having not worked for them in a year. Came second there too. Came second in my own league for Facebook buddies as well. I set that one up so that I didn't have to compete with Ben, and then Kenny Nelson goes and beats me there in his stead! (Well done Kenny by the way!) Didn't manage to break the IFDA's top ten (out of 68 teams), but came close - in at 11th.

Lessons learned:
This year I had a terrible start, using the patented Chris Linter self-destruct method of >2 transfers a week at a cost of 4+ points a turn. I was very trigger happy, and spent way too much of my points where I should have just made do with the one sensible transfer a week. I was trying to find out how many transfers I made at the start, and found that the website only shows the last 50. This only takes me back to Gameweek 16. Looks like I've been making at least 2-3 transfers a week, and didn't seem to wise up until about Gameweek 30. That probably wasn't a great way to go about things. Total of 67 transfers.

I also discovered a new source of information to add to the Decision_Engine.xls spreadsheet that I have going. I certainly don't try and rely on my own meagre knowledge of football, and guesswork to pick a team. Top secret of course, don't want to give away my edge.

Now that it's over for the summer, I have a spare half an hour each week where I'm not crunching the stats through Excel *sniff*. I will miss it.

Final stats:
1962 points
144,737th out of 2,462,452 players (top 6%!)

This is a blog post from my new phone

So I made the jump from luddite to smartphone owner. I've been craving the silky smooth interface of an iPhone, for a while but just didn't have the finances to pay the Apple tax. So I opted for an Android phone: the HTC Desire S on O2. With a 90 quid cashback deal through Quidco, the phone cost me just 15 quid, and the tariff I'm on with O2 is a bit less than the Simplicity tariff I was on with my old Sony Ericsson. If it wasn't for the fact that I probably should have done this sooner, this move probably would have made me feel like a genius. Still getting used to using the thing, but I definitly don't regret not getting an iPhone. Android seems to have all sorts of benefits. Maybe I'll come back to you on that once I'm used to working this thing.

Dirty Wee Bird

I was about to jump into my car yesterday when I was greeted by this horrific act of sabotage. A dirty wee bird had gone and done a poo all over my car door handle. It was disgusting. So I got in the car on the other side, climbed over the central console and went about my business. When I got back, I gave it a thorough wash, cursed the birds a few times, then had some gin. I hope the bird hasn't done it again this morning- I have to go into work today.

Film Blog 2010 - Easy To Write; Boring To Read

Thought I would write on my blog again. Easiest blog I can do is to go onto a website listing all the cinema releases from 2010 and pick out all the films I've seen, as well as the films that passed me by that I'd still like to see, and write a quick spiel on them:

http://www.filmdetail.com/2010/01/14/uk-cinema-releases-2010/

Kick-Ass
I laughed so hard when the wee girl gets shot. The warehouse sequence was immense. Laura took me to see this. I was so chuffed. Great film.

Date Night
Thought it was going to be a bit funnier, but still pretty good.

The Losers
Seemed like a cheaper version of the A-Team. Such a B-Movie, but leave your brain behind kind of fun action movie. Good show. Thought it was clever in parts actually.

Iron Man 2
Not as good as Iron Man. Bit of a let down.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Time to hand in the man card: I actually enjoyed this.

Inception
Blew my mind. Pretty similar concept to The Matrix in my mind. I felt The Matrix had a better explanation for the technology. Loved the ideas in the movie.

Toy Story 3
Thought I would be scoffing all through this 'kids movie'. It was awesome. Hid the tears in the cinema.

The A-Team
Thought this was going to be lame. It wasn't too shabby! Some genuinely funny bits and as expected, great dumb action sequences and pretty explosions.

The Other Guys
Caught this on DVD recently. It's hilarious. Very interesting end credits.


Still to watch:

Machete
This looks like insane, over-the-top gratuitous action. So 'over the top action it's funny' is the best action. The trailer sold it to me.

RED
Old actors kicking ass! Laura even said she wanted to see this. I have a lot of time for Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren.

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps
Apparently a pretty mediocre movie. I'm just interested in the dynamics of the stock exchange. How boring is that.

The Social Network
Can't believe this passed me by. Seems like a pretty big deal. Better watch it.

Fun thing to do: go to
http://www.filmdetail.com/archives/2009/01/17/uk-cinema-releases-2009/
and pick out which films you went and saw this year.

Here's mine in chronological order.

Defiance
Role Models
Slumdog Millionaire
Notorious
Seven Pounds
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The International
Watchmen
17 Again
X Men Origins: Wolverine
Star Trek
Angels and Demons
Public Enemies
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
Inglourious Basterds
District 9
Up
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Was going to give them all a quick review, but that was taking too long. Think my favourite was possibly Star Trek.

Christmas Ringtones

I just heard my first Christmas ringtone today, and it reminded me of my Granny. Despite being a real technophobe, she owned a mobile phone. One day, she asked me to put the volume up (she was also hard of hearing). I changed her settings as requested, but also mischievously changed her ringtone to the pre-loaded midi version of Jingle Bells. This was in Summer. Since she couldn't do much on the phone except make and receive calls, the ringtone remained out of season for a good few years.

Maybe I have a twisted sense of humour, but anytime I think about it, it makes me chuckle.

Cool MJ Photoshop

Saw this in the Odyssey. Pretty cool looking.

Full set of crested coins!

Just got the final piece of the puzzle, a 50 pence piece. And now the picture is complete. Actually took ages for the crested 50p to show up.

I don't know why, but I just seem to enjoy spam like this:

Assalam Alaikum..My Beloved

I am Mrs. Sabah Ahmad a citizen of Kuwait but currently residing in the United Kingdom. I was married to Late Sheikh Mubarak of blessed memory who was an oil explorer in Kuwait and Angola for twelve years before he died in the year 2000. We were married for twelve years without a child; he died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Since his death I too have been battling with both Cancer and fibroid problems. When my late Husband was alive he deposited a substantial amount of money worth US$8.5Million with a bank in the United Kingdom which I inherited after his death.

Recently, my doctor told me that I have only 2 month to live due to my ailment. Having known my condition, I have donated my estates and few other properties to some Charity organizations in London, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot continue to do this by myself any more. I then said to myself that I must reach out to the world via this communication means by finding a kind hearted person that will continue where I stopped. I decided to donate this fund to either a charity/orphanage home or devoted God fearing individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct therein. I want this organization or individual to use this money in all sincerity to fund charity homes (motherless homes), orphanages, and widows. I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husbands relatives are into radical organization and I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an unholy manner, hence the reason

I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health condition which has seriously affected my speech and also because of the presence of my husband's relatives around me always. I don't want them to know about this development. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you further directives on what to do and how to go about actualizing this project. I will also instruct my lawyer to file an application on your behalf to the bank where the funds were deposited for the transfer of the money to you for this purpose. I want you to always pray for me. Any delay in your reply will give room in sourcing for an organization or a devoted Individual for this same purpose. You can contact me through my private email: Loading mrssabah102@sify.com


Until I hear from you by email; my dreams will rest squarely on your shoulders.

Remain blessed,
Mrs. Sabah Ahmad