Apply for your NCT and Car Servicing Now to Avoid Costs in January

With January fast approaching – traditionally one of the worst months in the year for expenses – Cartell offers some advice to consumers.

January is a miserable month for most of us: Christmas is over, the turkey is eaten, the beer and wine consumed, and then it’s back to reality – with a bang. Credit Card bills, central heating bills, and other household expenses fall due before anyone even mentions the car.  What many people ignore is that January is generally the worst month for vehicle expenses. There’s a very simple reason for this: most people buy their cars in January.

And this simple fact affects everyone in the market – not just the original purchaser. Where a car is bought in January it means the insurance premium, by and large, falls due to be paid in January; it means the NCT – after 4 years – falls due; it means the motor tax on the car will fall due; it means the car will need its annual service in January. These four things together could set back a vehicle owner €2,000 – and that’s before you’ve gotten around to paying off the money owed on those Christmas presents! And, as we say, even if you bought your car in the used car market, remember that it’s likely your car was originally bought in January so these expenses will – generally speaking – still fall due.

Is there anything the owner can do about this?

One option is to look to spread your capital payments across the year – rather than allow them all fall due in the same month. There are two ways to achieve this: 1. You can pay by instalments therefore spreading the pain over the entire year; or 2. You can move the capital payments to another month.

On the first option many insurance companies, for instance, will allow you to pay your insurance premium in instalments across the whole year. The Motor Taxation office, too, will allow you pay for your tax quarterly or 6-monthly instead of annually. The downside with both those options is  they are more expensive. If you spread payments across the year like this you will be charged a premium for that luxury: i.e. your annualised costs will be higher than if you paid the entire capital amounts when they fall due.

 The second option may be more inviting to some of our readers. With this option you are looking to spread the burden of the capital payments across the year without paying a premium for doing so. For instance, as regards your motor tax, you could pay motor tax in January for the first 3 months of the year. In March, when your tax falls due again, you could pay for 12 months – meaning that you consequently move the 12 month anniversary for your tax from January to April each year. Likewise instead of having your NCT in January, with your other expenses, why not apply to have your car test carried out early: the company who carries out the NCT will allow the test to be carried out up to three months before the due date, for a second or subsequent inspection (6 months for a first inspection). Ditto your servicing – you could have your service done earlier in the year too, therefore moving the due date for your annual service. It might serve you well to do these two before the Winter anyway – good opportunity to check your brakes, lights and tyres before the snow season starts.

Applying a few strategies like this will help to avoid incurring several large capital payments together.  Hope this helps!