*Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Do you have a personal finance story that you'd like to share? Sign up with the Yahoo! Contributor Network to start publishing your own finance articles.
I have to admit it; I'm cheap. But, it comes with the territory. As the Assistant Controller of an engineering and production facility, it's my job to analyze how to the operation can save or make more money. One day, I applied my analytical acumen to my own automobile ownership. The next thing I knew, I went from driving a mid-sized truck to a hamster car. Go figure.
Running the Numbers
It seemed like every time I turned around, the price of gas had gone up. I blinked and it rose to $3.89 a gallon. When you drive a good distance between work and home every day, that can be expensive. I was spending about $80 or more on gas each week to just to get around. If you do the math, $80 x 52 weeks = $4,160 per year. That's a lot of money. I didn't have a monster truck, but it still didn't get very good gas mileage. It was time to do some soul searching.
No More Hauling for Me
I began to question why I was driving the gas-guzzling truck, anyway. I didn't live in the mountains or need a four-wheel-drive vehicle. I wasn't into mud bogging. The best excuse I could come up with was that I needed the truck when I wanted to haul large items.
But, then I really thought about it. In the last year, how many times did I haul something? The answer was twice. I bought a small dresser for me and one of my friends bought a large area rug she couldn't fit in her car to bring home. The truth was, I could rent a truck or pay delivery charges of $50 twice a year if I really wanted to give up my truck.
Giving Up My High Ride
A little more soul searching and I came up with the real reason I liked my truck. It wasn't that I desperately needed the cargo space. The truth was that I liked sitting up high were I could see everything from the driver's seat. Kind of silly, yes, but that's what I finally realized. So it came down to giving up my high ride to find a car that was inexpensive and got much better gas mileage.
All is Well With My Soul
After much research and many test drives, I end up with a hamster car. Well, at least that's what my friends called it. That's because of the commercials with the hamsters driving the car, moving to the beat of the music. Yes, I'm now the proud owner of a little "alien green" colored Kia Soul. With 30 miles to the gallon, I got my gas costs down to $40 a week. It's a stripped down model - nothing fancy - but, it gets me from point A to B and I'm saving over $2,000 per year in gas money.
There are no comments yet