Turning a depreciating Asset into income generators

byKWahid

128 followers

Updated 7 years ago

For many years I have been an avid car renter. Be it a road trip, wedding or meeting clients, I was always looking for the best deal to cater best for each occasion. Then It hit me!! I must be spending a small fortune in renting out cars all the time from the industry heavyweights and then worrying about keeping the car spic and span (very clean) before returning it and suddenly feeling sad that “I don’t have that lovely car to drive anymore!”

So one day I sat on my laptop doing my budget and realised a wedding was coming up although on this occasion I was rationing and couldn’t afford the luxury of renting. Yikes!!! What do I do??? I thought to myself . Take a taxi!! (The venue was too far) hitch a ride perhaps?? That would just limit my independence of when I can arrive /leave the venue. It was only after I saw an ad from a retailer about a ‘car scrappage ‘ scheme where you get several thousand pounds towards a new vehicle if you trade your old vehicle in (I thought that’s great , green is certainly the way to go)

So after making a trip to my local dealership, I negotiated a deal to trade in my now tired looking 10 year old car for a new vehicle. After navigating through sales and managing to get extra incentives such as extended warranty and free insurance for a year I was happy with my 0% interest finance deal. Along with the added peace of mind of warranty, I was certainly happy with my very affordable repayments.

Then It struck me!!! The euphoria moment. Here I am admiring my new car with its great looks , however there must surely be ‘another me’ or dare I say several hundred of not thousands of ‘me’ who scramble around looking Hire a car for a special occasions. Problem could be as was the case with my brother, sometimes through no intentional fault of our own, credit ratings take a nosedive somewhere in the past restricting the other “me” in financing.

Problem with the big industry heavy hitters is they can charge a lot more than someone an afford (believe me ..i should know). So I decided to advertise my new car for rent. Searched online, put a simple description and price and certain conditions along with a quirky message, and my perseverance has paid off!!! The platform I joined is super simple for both drivers and owners and it’s a community in itself. I now have regular requests for my vehicle to be rented.

The luxury of renting the car when I want through the app is exceptional. So to summarise, where I was spending loads on car rental, I now was not only helping a community of individuals meet their aspirations for car rental, I am actually generating income and “cutting out the middleman (those industry heavy hitters) I keep referring to. As you may have seen, my motto is “there’s always room for the little guy to be the hero.”

I wanted to share this story with the WA family to demonstrate that sometimes assets we have where the general consensus is a) deprecating asset b) high running costs can actually be turned into a commodity. In this instance, I have turned my ‘asset’ into generating a modest supplement income and I can say hands down anyone with a passion and determination can ultimayely do the same in a handful of areas and not just cars!!

Thanks for taking the time to capture my journey into the world of entrepreneurship!!