When it comes to saving money, I’ve found that the best policy is to find little leaks that can be easily plugged, but the savings derived from them adds up over time. Recently I took a look at my car, and I took five steps that will save me hundreds of dollars this year. This is far from comprehensive from what you can do to save money on your car, but it can show that just thinking about how you might save in one area can help you come up with creative ways to do so.
Take off the Ski Rack
I haven’t been skiing for about 2 months, but I still had my ski rack on top of my car. It took five minutes to remove it and store it in the garage until next year, but doing so will improve the gas mileage my car gets because there won’t be the resistance and drag the ski rack caused. I have a bike rack too, but I won’t put it on until I need to use it, and I’m determined to take it off between uses this summer.
Regularly Rotate My Tires
I buy my tires at Costco. What a lot of people don’t know is that they will rotate your tires for free (Les Schwab, Big O, and some other tire outlets offer this service for free as well). I do this regularly because I didn’t do it with my last set fo tires and due to uneven tire wear, I ended up losing about 10,000 miles of life on them according to the tire guy. That ends up being enough miles that I would have to buy an extra set of tires for me car during its lifetime if I didn’t get the rotated every 5000 miles. With a set of tires costing hundreds of dollars, that’s a big saving for something that’s simple to do if you make the time for it.
Don’t Use My Car (as Much)
It’s such an obvious way to save money, but among my friends, I’m the only one who consistently does this. If I don’t need to drive the car, I choose an alternative method of transportation. I don’t drive to the grocery store that’s about 2 miles away. I ride my bike instead. Not only does it save gas plus wear and tear on my car, I get the exercise I wouldn’t otherwise get which has let me cancel my gym membership. It’s reached the point where I only use my car about 50% of the time when I leave my house. Most people I know use theirs 90% – 100% of the time.
Compare Insurance
You know all those commercials that say you can save hundreds of dollars switching insurance companies? A lot of them are correct and the Internet makes it easy to do. I actually love my insurance agent, that that hasn’t stopped me from getting better deals. Each year I do a search to see what the lowest rate Ic ould get from another company would be and take it to him. He hasn’t always been able to match it, but he gets as close as he can. I’m willing to pay a bit more to stay with my agent since I know I can count on him when there is an issue, but that doesn’t mean I can’t save money in the process as well.
Insurance Tracking
I let my car insurance company track my driving. I know a lot of people don’t like this, but I drive like an old lady anyway so it doesn’t bother me. My insurance company calls theirs SmartRide, but almost all companies have them now such as Snapshot. Basically, these devices track your driving and miles, and if you don’t drive a lot (like me since I take my bike on a lot of the shorter trips), you get a discount. I lowered my costs by about $100 a year by using it.
None of the above takes a lot of time or effort to do. It’s just a matter of doing it. And this is just one area of my life. I’m planning on doing the same thing to many other areas of my life to cut out excess spending fat that can be trimmed without much effort.
