Car Ownership Cost Tracker, True Cost Per Mile (Excel, Google Sheets)

CAR OWNERSHIP COST TRACKER — Excel and Google Sheets, with a filled-in example inside

Everybody knows what a tank of fuel costs. Almost nobody knows what the car loses in value while it sits on the drive, and that is usually the biggest line of all.

This file puts the invisible cost next to the receipts, and then divides everything by the month, the week and every mile you have driven.

THE NUMBER THIS FILE EXISTS FOR

In the worked example the car has cost $21,034 in three and a half years. Fuel is $5,616 of that. Depreciation is $8,600 — and nobody ever wrote a cheque for it.

That is why arguing about the price at the pump is mostly theatre. It also explains why the car costs $306.92 a month with the key still in a drawer.

THE NINE TABS

Setup — the car, what you paid, the two odometer readings, and what it would fetch today.
Fuel Log — one row per fill-up. Between two full tanks it works out the distance, your real consumption and the fuel cost per mile.
Running Costs — servicing, tyres, repairs, the MOT, the airport car park. Ten categories, totalled.
Standing Costs — insurance, tax, breakdown cover, a permit. Yearly figures, spread to a month and a day.
The True Cost — everything added up, including depreciation, divided every useful way.
Keep or Replace — three years forward, both ways, on the same arithmetic.
Year by Year — your own receipts grouped by calendar year, with the cost per mile for each.
Month by Month — twenty-four months, so the lumpy ones stop being a surprise.
Dashboard — four charts. Nothing typed.

THE FULL TANK RULE, DONE PROPERLY

Consumption only means anything between two full tanks. Tick "filled to full" and the file measures from the last full tank — including the fuel from any part fill in between, which is the bit most trackers quietly get wrong and which flatters their figures.

Use the odometer, not the trip meter.

KEEP OR REPLACE

The trap is comparing a repair bill against a monthly payment. That is not the comparison. The comparison is what the next three years cost either way, depreciation included.

In the example, keeping the old car costs $15,768 over three years and replacing it costs $19,828 — because the newer car loses $10,000 in value while it sits there being reliable. Change the six assumptions to yours and the answer moves.

TWO COPIES IN THE DOWNLOAD
One workbook has the worked example filled in, so you can see what every column expects before you touch anything. The second is the same file completely blank — same tabs, same formulas, same charts — ready for your own numbers from the first row. Start on whichever suits you.

WORKS WITH
Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer, Windows or Mac. Google Sheets — upload and open with Sheets; every formula works, the dropdowns look a little different, the print settings do not carry across. LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no login.

HONEST LIMITS — please read before buying
- Depreciation is an estimate. Until you sell, it is a careful guess about a price. A careful guess still beats pretending it is zero.
- Finance is not modelled. There is no amortisation schedule. If you pay interest, log it as a running cost and it lands in the total properly.
- Tax is not modelled. Business mileage, VAT and benefit-in-kind differ by country, by structure and by year. This is a household file, not an accountant.
- One car per file. Two cars means two copies.
- It does not read your computer's clock. Every "so far" number counts from one date on the Setup tab. That is deliberate: a file that changes under you every morning is a file you stop trusting.
- Capacity: 300 fill-ups, 250 running costs, 20 standing costs, 10 years, 24 months.

WHAT ARRIVES
Two .xlsx workbooks and a plain-English Start Here guide as a PDF. Instant download — no app, no login, no monthly fee.

I never ask for shop access. No password, no manager invite, no app permissions. You download a file; that is the whole transaction.

Licence: for your own use. Reselling or redistributing the file is not allowed.

Something wrong with it? Message me through Etsy and I will fix the file.