Bengaluru CA says you’re wrong about owning cars: Her ₹2.4 lakh math flips finance advice

A Bengaluru-based chartered accountant is pushing back against a popular piece of personal finance advice: that buying a car is a bad investment.

In a LinkedIn post, Meenal Goel revealed that owning a car would have saved her ₹2.4 lakh over five years compared to relying on Uber for daily commutes and travel.

Goel’s frustration stemmed from the repeated narrative on social media that cars are “depreciating assets” and therefore poor financial choices. She called this “the most absurd analysis” she’s seen lately and decided to run her own numbers—grounded in her real-life experience living on the outskirts of Bengaluru in 2019.

At the time, Goel’s daily Uber commutes stretched over two hours and consumed 36% of her monthly budget.

Curious about the alternative, she mapped out the total cost of owning a car over five years. Her calculation included down payment, EMIs, fuel, insurance, maintenance, weekend drives, and four road trips a year. The total? ₹11.11 lakh. After adjusting for resale value, it still beat Uber.

By comparison, five years of Uber rides—based on ₹27/km for weekdays and ₹20/km for weekends, plus road trip costs—would have totaled ₹13.55 lakh. That’s ₹2.4 lakh more than car ownership.

Her conclusion: financial advice needs context. While depreciation is real, so are convenience, control over travel, and city-specific commuting challenges. “Personal finance, as the name suggests, is extremely personal,” she wrote. “Don’t base your financial decisions on irrational and generic advice. Evaluate based on your own numbers.”