I have been driving my 1990 Mazda Protege for over 3 years. Every time I filled it with gas, I would write down the information—I wouldn’t have, except my sister had a notebook of the information, so I just continued. I’m glad I did, now I have a record of every (almost) tank of gas this beater has drunk. Below is the last year of data.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pX6diIF07I8p4Z_yl_V4fZw
As you can see, I’ve done a good many miles—about 1000 per month, and that costs me about $100. How could I reduce this? I could buy a car that gets better than 26 mpg. I could not drive so much. If I cut out my ~monthly multi-hundred-mile trips (seen by dates near each other), I could reduce how much I spend—but at what cost? Not seeing friends and family? I could also buy a car that uses diesel, and get used cooking oil for free, and turn it to biodiesel for about 80 cent/gallon. At the same mileage, that’s about a third the price.
But, for that, I really should have a garage to store/process the oil. So, I should buy a house with a garage. And instead of renting at $460 per month, I could buy a house with a (460+70)/month mortgage. At 30 years and 6.5%, that means I could buy an $84,000 house (with garage) and I’d only end up paying 190,800 dollars by the time I was done (if I didn’t refinance). So, when I was 56, I would have a house, free and clear! And if apprieciation was 3%, I could sell it for a good 127,440! That could buy my RV so I could retire and travel around the country. Only RV’s will cost alot more then, so maybe it would buy my 4th car, and a tent, and I could travel in style.
If there were other options for Americans, maybe I could make it work out better.
Jess and Robert have updated their blog! Pictures of Moravia, with hints of more posting in the future: http://wesatterinafield.blogspot.com/
