Things have a tendency to get absorbed in the checking account.
I may just be talking about our own household, but I do know of a certain famous someone who likes to say something along the lines of, “give each dollar a name or it will go away.”
While driving the other day, it occurred to me that we must be spending a good deal less on gas than we were just last year.
It’s partly because of my husband’s work situation change, and partly due to plummeting oil barrel prices. While his old company was 29.8 miles from home and made him traverse some of the worst traffic known to man (not exaggerating much on that one; Houston is #4 for worst traffic in the nation and these particular roads he was driving were pretty brutal) and then 22.6 miles to his college campus, his new job is just 8.6 miles from home without even having to travel on the freeway. Score #2 is his new job is halfway between our home and his college…meaning we are racking up the miles savings there as well.
Curious to see what exactly was going on with gas savings in our own lives, I logged into Mint.com to check things out. To be exact, in the heyday of his horrible commute situation plus college classes all the way across town, plus egregious gas prices, we were paying approximately $400/per month in gas.
Last month, it was just $231.
Woah.
That’s extra monthly cash flow of approximately $170 right now! Talk about feeling like we got a pay raise.
Being Intentional with Our Gas Savings
So here’s the thing. We could just continue to let it slip by that we have an extra $170 each month in our checking. And honestly, it would just slip by if we used this method. Somehow, whether intended or not, that money would be spent.
Or…we could intentionally save it.
Like actually earmark it for something that would make a real difference to us. I mean, we were spending that money several months ago anyway, right? So it’s not going to be missed.
How We’re Going to Use Our Gas Savings
There are two things that are on our large expense list in the very near future (and they’re doozies):
Replace Upstairs Central AC and Furnace: Before having our child, we could ignore the fact that our A/C and furnace for the upstairs has seen better days since the fall of the Berlin wall. My office is on the second floor, so we purchased a heater for the winter time, and were given a window A/C unit for the summertime. Now that his nursery is upstairs, we need to seriously look into replacing the entire unit (which was condemned by the last HVAC specialist…oooh a year ago).
Replace My Beater Car: We both have two-door cars, which is not convenient when using a baby car seat. It’s doable, but is not a long-term solution. On top of that, my car, which houses this car seat 100% of the time, has no heat (though we live in Houston so that’s not a huge problem), leaks power steering, leaks engine coolant, and has other various idiosyncrasies about it. I’m still going to hold out a bit on looking for a new beater car; after all, my goal with this one after paying $2,500 in cash for its 160,000 miles of wonderness was to get to five years with it (at least). We’re in year four.
Today, while writing this article, I have set up an automatic withdrawal of $170/month into our large expense savings account. I suspect the Central A/C and new furnace will take precedent over the new vehicle (remember I’m a work from home mom, so I don’t use the car that much), and will earmark our newfound savings towards that barring any beater car meltdown between now and then.
So, where are your gas savings going to? I challenge you to make them intentional…especially since gas prices are creeping back up again!
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