A painful reality check as a fellow young and overly-enthusiastic co-owner.
In the next few days, I will be letting go of my first car. I like many who have grown an attachment for their pride and joy, is bothered to the point of tears about it. Simply put, I cannot maintain my ownership of this car and am forced to part ways with it as the COE ends soon this month.
I am only 23. I will confess that this car was bought and is under my family’s name – a gift to introduce to me the world of owning a car and having my own private mobility. As an enthusiast, I have also been just as happy to be given the liberty to modify as I see fit (within local laws).
I do not speak on behalf of all young owners. Some have deservedly bought their cars under their own money, but it is a perspective worth sharing, as this one isn’t all sunshine and rainbows either. I am super blessed, spoiled even, but that label doesn’t reflect the full story that I am not immune to the consequences of my own choices.
Parents, I am sure you will understand the genuine burden of helping your child secure this freedom of mobility, no matter where you read this. Singaporeans, you and I have to put up with this class-dividing ownership cost called COE, and for the rest of the world, we all have to put up with the increasing cost of living, this financial burden and the payment of fees and taxes to keep our personal assets.
As one of a handful of young drivers who get to call their ride “theirs” although the money forked up was not fully or at all theirs, I know that there is a mental bubble that had inflated my ego, my perceived spending power and taken advantage of my lack of self-control.
Social media and some groups have made the reality to enter cars so detached, the ups of whichever cars are better for clicks than the mentioning of the downs, and most car media groups tend to be backed by owners old and deep in the game, or overseas where the good-car-to-financial-burden ratio is much lesser than Singapore’s.
So many older gentlemen in other countries are reminiscing of their cars that they (no doubt struggled to) purchased when they were eighteen or twenty, which only serves to push the mental image that young guys like me should be in a car in our early twenties when that average age-of-entry is only increasing because of rising costs, rising value and rising restrictions.
While I spend eye-watering sums on my Suzuki Swift Sport that I wouldn’t be able to afford on my own, content creators in the United Kingdom are happily purchasing individual-spec BMWs and Porsches, or casually reviewing the next million-dollar supercar like its not a big deal. There even is a caption trend going around of “me in my twenties buying a classic car instead of a Tesla”, which only serves to keep the disillusion going. I admit that I was engrossed so much in this cultural difference that I lost myself thinking I was just as capable and entitled of owning a car at a young age as a young man in the UK buying another legendary hot hatch, or in the US buying a Ford Mustang 5.0 as his first car.
I painfully regret the burden that my family has had to carry with this depreciating asset of mine. No agreement of forward payment will subsidize the pain that I see in them as they have to keep working harder to keep maintaining my dream, nor will it replace the many conversations with them that were obviously impacted by their stress to put food on the table. What was several tens of thousands of dollars of potential investment or emergency funds was taken by an asset sure to depreciate to be enjoyed primarily by another family member.
I know that my friend and fellow writers here are obsessed with the pursuit of the next thing or to endlessly scroll for the next automotive part. While it is normalized by western communities, it doesn’t sell the true impact that a listing too good is funds too easy to depart, and the part when it arrives, is still a hole in the wallet. Young guys and gals in this position normally don’t have a reliable or stable source of income to cover the unexpected purchase, making the burn in the wallet a permanent one that impacting either them or their family.
I have spent easily thousands of dollars that either came from me or the pitiful help from my parents, money that likely will not come back even if I sell what parts I had bought. My car in Singapore will go for scrap value that is depressingly lesser than the price paid for years of registration, and cars in other countries will likely sell for a loss because of simple reason of running costs, but especially repairs and modifications.
You may tell me that cars shouldn’t be treated as an investment and as an experience, but for someone too self-aware and making too little money, the cost to purchase already hurts, and more costs for repairs due to wear and tear or self-inflicted only serves to put salt in the wound.
I like cars, but being overly enthusiastic as I have become with such a fragile perception has crumbled against my will so many times. Like when I was out of a car undergoing repairs, when I was dealt with an unexpected bill, when I got into my first accident, and when I am now about to be forced out of ownership.
Being this self-aware about the cost and effect of owning this car I call mine isn’t glamorous now that I am self-conscious about what its doing to me and my loved ones. Not only do they feel the stress, but I am too. Even if not for my country’s registration nightmare, the worrying about an asset, the maintenance, the value, the public perception – it harms your image of yourself if not your mental health.
And as my car’s time is going to be up, this idea that it is not long for this world and these hands of mine, I am trying my best to make peace with it, and look beyond at the increasingly larger hole I have dug myself. I will wonder how different it is to no longer have the very thing I burdened my family to spend copious amounts of money on, with the only thing left of it is the debt that I owe.
I am asking myself if “suffering” through all of this was worth it. Make no mistake that it is a huge up and down, that I have met people I wouldn’t have otherwise, lessons learnt early, mindset built modestly. But seeing the burden felt by those closest to me, the burden felt by me now, and the burden felt by me later, feels like a tangent too big to be considered worth it all.
For parents and similar age-ranges reading this, I am sure that this view of life is far more detached than the true reality that you have or are currently facing, but please understand and remember that we all go through different phases in life. From young, we are sheltered and see the world as our playground where the sky was the limit, and as we slowly grow are we constantly knocked down by the repeated hardships and hard realities of life. It is no longer worth keeping this dream of mine, and I am learning the most painful but truthful lessons in life.
~Guest writer JT
Read more: Fuel for Thought: Video game car ownership is more fun than the real counterpart
