Trade a Car Payment for the Cost of Gas?by Debbie Vasen | More from this Blogger 22 Jul 2008 10:58 AM Now that the cost of gas has reached over $4 a gallon, it puts this expense into a completely new category. The rising cost of driving has reached the cost of many other large items, including the purchase of a new car. With gas prices so high, it is time to look at your whole budget. A good friend of mine told me an interesting budget story last week. Both her and her husband live in a rural area and have to commute to work in town each day. They have different schedules, so they can't carpool. In addition, since they live rurally, there is no public transportation to their jobs. They have no choice but to drive their cars separately to work each day. Neither one makes much money, and with the price of gas, their budget was slowly eroding. They looked again at their budget. Although they had two cars that were paid off, they were both older cars. One was smaller and got decent gas mileage; the other was a truck that guzzled gas. Between the two cars, they were spending almost a $100 a week on gas, most of that cost coming from the truck. At $400 a month, they realized that was a car payment. They decided to sell the truck. Have the husband (who worked the furthest away) drive the small car. With the money they saved in gas, they were able to buy a brand new car with much better gas mileage. Now they had two good fuel-efficient cars, one practically brand new, and they were spending less of their money on cars (maintenance, fuel and loan payments combined) then they were before. I felt this lesson was a good one for everyone to hear. When the cost of one of your expenses is rising, start looking for alternatives. Instead of watching your income erode, think out of the box. What other options are there? Related Articles: *MyGallons.com Promises to Save You Money on Gas Learn more about Debbie Vasen  Debbie Vasen is a published web content editor and writer, as well as a freelance writer for various print publications. In addition to blogging at Families. Relevantmoney tags User Comments rene52 (5) 10 Feb 2009 09:24 PMWhile buying an old car, always take care about the mileage of the car, maintainance facilities are available or not. And if the car be sold after few years. ========================== rene New Cars biglou860 (25) 10 Mar 2009 03:39 PMim passing the word on a site i found that helped me and my fam out of some rough times. I told myself that i would pass on the info to all the site is www.fastpaydayloansite.com Theres alot of good info and help here so click around and find the help you or someone else might need god bless and please pass it forward who knows who we can help next JohnathanV (20) 26 Mar 2009 01:51 AMTo become rich is every man's dream and prayer... Usually, we could sicerely feel our prayers if it is accompanied with music.Slacker Radio is actually quite the thing. Slacker radio may well outpace Sirius for ad-free radio that leaves their local based counterparts in the dust, partially because of ease of use, convenience, partially because unlike satellite it's free and also because Slacker isn't staring down the barrel of possible bankruptcy. You won't need installment loans to get this ad free radio, its broadcast for free over the internet. All you need to do is register for free with an email address, and you're good to go - which you can also do with its counterpart Pandora. No ads, no self important and really annoying deejays, and you pick the playlist. Who would stick to normal radio when you could get Slacker Radio? OwenU (5) 01 Apr 2009 01:31 AMThat was a great idea! There are so many people suffer for the infinite amount be cause of their car everyday expenditures. Nowadays we have to look for an alternative to surpass the contemporary crisis. Tesla Motors is gunning to be at the forefront of electric cars, after announcing plans for the Tesla Roadster, a fully electric car with a 200 plus mile range that goes from 0-60 in 4 seconds. Up until now, they haven't delivered many. The company has just unveiled an electric sedan, which retails for a more modest price than the Roadster that is due to start mass production in 2012. Both sedan and the roadster require some hefty cash advance loans to get one. The S Model (sedan) carries an estimated MSRP of about $57,000, and the roadster is a paltry $110,000. However, a few years after the S model is hitting the streets, a $30,000 model should be about ready from Tesla Motors. to read more visit http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/03/27/tesla-motors-unveils-allelectric-sedan-prototype/. Community Tags budgeting, Expenses, gas prices Discuss this article
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