Time for our half-year asset review:

Compared to June 2010 the KBB value on the 2003 Honda-CRV rose from $11,200 to $11,555. The 2007 Mazda 3 value went up from $13,520 to $13,990 with a total value increase of $825. This hardly offsets what our house did to our net worth but that’s another story.

Oddly, both vehicles appreciated in value despite adding miles and age. I have two ideas why:

Gas prices are higher than last year so vehicles which get decent mileage are in high demand.
The value of the dollar has actually decreased.

I’m not an economist so I don’t know, but regardless, the last 12 months have been a good year to hold assets in vehicles and not dollars. Anyway, now for the fun stuff:

Note: My asset review fiscal year starts in May or June (I roll the year whenever I feel like reviewing and realizing the assets so some years can be shorter than others). The Year 2008 refers to June-2008 through May 2009, The Year 2009 refers to June 2009-May-2010 and so on.

2007 Mazda3 Costs

2007 Mazda3 cost of ownership (May 23, 2007 to June 15, 2011)

(bought new)


Asset Review Year	2008	2009	2010	2011	Total	Mean
Fuel	1973	1087	815	784	4659	1164
Insurance	1670	847	644	896	4057	1014
Depreciation	275	970	1625	(470)	2400	600
Service	379	1347	185	1386	3297	824
Interest Expense	727	691	347	68	1833	458
New car tax	1274	nil	nil	nil	1274	318
DMV Registration	362	171	217	199	949	237
Accessories	121	nil	nil	nil	121	30
Documentation Fee	55	nil	nil	nil	55	13
Jury Duty parking ticket	14	nil	nil	nil	14	3
Total Costs	6851	5127	3833	2363	18174	4543
Miles Driven	18619	10090	7831	6960	43500	10875
Cost per mile	0.37	0.51	0.49	0.34	0.43	0.43

I sold the Mazda3 since we don’t need two cars now that I walk to work, and if we did we would rather have an AWD anyway. I’ve closed the books on it. Total cost of ownership was $18174. $378/month or $0.43/mile. I will miss that car, but I’m happy it has a good owner (the new owner has been driving his previous car since long before I was born and finally decided it was time to replace it).

I booked the difference in KBB value and selling price to service since the tires were getting close to being needed to be replaced so that’s why the service is very high. I probably should have booked that to depreciation, but I’m not regulated so I do accounting my way.

2003 Honda-CRV cost of ownership (June 8 2009 to June 20, 2011)

(bought used)

Starting miles: 77810

Ending miles: 90669

Asset Review Year	2010	2011	Total	Mean
Service	1680	426	2106	1053
Fuel	788	932	1720	860
Insurance	644	896	1540	770
Depreciation	605	(355)	250	125
DMV Registration	490	0	490	245
Total Costs	4207	1899	6106	3053
Miles Driven	5690	7169	12859	6430
Cost per mile	0.74	0.26	0.47	0.47

So glad we got out of California just in time to not have to pay the DMV registration again. The $490 last year was because the DMV didn’t send us the invoice. We were unable to pay online because you can’t pay without knowing a code that’s on the invoice. We were honest and told them they needed to bill us. The DMV apologized for not sending the invoice and being grateful for our honesty gave us a discount for our trouble was late seeing us for our appointment and slapped us with hundreds of dollars in extra fees and fines for not paying a bill that we couldn’t pay because they wouldn’t let us pay without the code that’s on the invoice that we didn’t get; then made us go smog the vehicle but wouldn’t extend a temporary registration for more than two days even though it was a three day weekend and all the smog shops were closed.

Insurance is allocated 50% to each car.

Asset Review: Good Year for Cars

2007 Mazda3 Costs

2007 Mazda3 cost of ownership (May 23, 2007 to June 15, 2011)

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