New Year, New Car

Hello everyone. It's a new year again.

Here's wishing everyone and your loved ones a Happy Lunar New Year!

Just a quick update for this week.

Over the weekend wifey, baby M and I went to the show room to check out some latest car models as my current COE is expiring next month.

On hind sight I should have started my car shopping earlier due to a reason which I will give below.

Prior to the show room visit, I have narrowed down my choices to two models:

1) Kia Cerato
2) A certain European brand starting with 'S'

Taking option 1 would mean less financial obligations and easier on the wallet for me. I also do not have to touch my investment portfolio.

Taking option 2 would likely involves me drawing down a certain percentage from my investments which would translate to lesser passive income for me from this year onwards and this is something I am very reluctant to do.

However the allure of driving a conti car for the first time is the reason why it is among my options in the first place.

Anyway my original intention was just to take a look, get a package price and decide later. However as we sat down with the SE for the discussion on the price and 'freebies' package, he was able to meet all my requests.

So in the end I decided to book the vehicle with him on the spot.

And my impending new ride is....

2019 Kia Cerato EX
(rims are of another design from this pic)

I am glad I chose the easier on the wallet option. In this way my investment portfolio remains intact, only downside is that I will have lesser cash for deployment.

Pros:

Best bang for buck car in the market now in my opinion
Nice design for both exterior and interior
Easy on the wallet

Cons:

Lead time of 3 months and above
Not so nice rims for the EX variant
(Probably will change them after getting my ride like what I did for my current one.. Haha)

And now it's a waiting game for the COE as I chose the 6 bids non-guarantee COE.