Hybrid Cars May Not Save You Money
So you or someone you know is thinking of buying a hybrid car. Before you spend the money for the new wheels, make you sure you are doing it for the right reason.
Say you are buying a hybrid to save the environment and the polar bears. Or do it because you can zip down the HOV lane while the rest of the plebeians sit in traffic sucking in exhaust fumes. Or maybe so you can give the middle finger to Big Oil.
But don’t buy a hybrid car because it’s going to save you money.
No one really plans for it when they buy a new motorcycle, but with only two wheels to keep it upright, gravity is a motorcycle’s worst enemy. When a simple tip-over can cost hundreds to thousands to repair, many of us think about adding frame sliders to our motorcycles for protection.
For many people, they rarely think about their tires unless they get a flat tire. Then it becomes a major inconvenience. Instead of ignoring our tires until there is a problem with them, we need to pay more attention to the condition of the tires that are on the car because we have a lot riding on them. I’m not talking about the car itself. Cars are replaceable, but your life and your family’s aren’t.
There is something about all those zeros appearing on the odometer that makes people think their car is going to blow up on them in any moment. Even my own mother is guilty of this, recently mentioning during dinner that their Toyota Corolla has almost 100,000 on it and it was becoming less reliable. A Toyota, of all cars! This came up because that little check engine light popped on when she was driving it one day and she immediately turned around and went back home.
Perhaps your parents are taking you off their auto insurance policy now that you’ve graduated from college or you’ve been paying for your auto insurance for years without a second thought of what you are paying for or what you actually are getting. Auto insurance doesn’t have to be confusing.
A few weeks ago I found a nice desk on Craigslist that someone was giving away for free. It was perfect for the office my brother was planning to lease, so we headed out to pick it up. The person who was giving it away lived about 30 miles away and Google Maps showed that it would take 50 minutes to drive there. Only it was 6 PM and the middle of rush hour. By the time we got there it was over an hour and a half later with a lot of time sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
For many people, starting up their ice cube of a car and letting it warm up a bit is something that we don’t really think about because it was something that’s always been done. Our parents did it because their parents did it or you hear how someone had a friend who didn’t warm up their car and the engine blew up and so on.
For most people, unless you live in a city with great public transportation or within walking or biking distance to work, you will probably need a car to get you where you need to go.
Costco members join the warehouse club for a variety of reasons. For $60 a year, you get access to great deals on electronics, clothing, food, alcohol, office supplies, tires, hearing aids, and so many free samples you can skip dinner later. What if you have no need or the space for an entire year’s worth of toilet paper? Is it worth the membership fee to join Costco only to save on gas and never even step foot inside the warehouse?
One of my favorite sites and apps for saving money, GasBuddy, has announced their new payment option Pay with GasBuddy to help drivers save money every time they fill up their tank.