As you know, we bought a Subaru Outback this spring. Pam has mentioned several times that she likes the car. Good thing. Otherwise, she would be in disagreement with these experts, who say that the 2010 Outback is the best car made for a Mom. Having read their opinion, however, I’m now wondering whether it’s also the best car made for a Dad.
Speaking of cars, do you know how much it costs you to keep your vehicle on the road? Recently, I thought it would be a good idea to take all of the bills we’ve kept over the years and compile a spreadsheet that would tell us how much it has cost us to drive our VW. The VW certainly keeps the fuel costs down, but I was somewhat shocked at the amount that maintenance and insurance add to the cost of driving. I haven’t double-checked my formulas on the spreadsheet yet, but the preliminary verdict is that it has cost us about 35 cents per mile (which excludes the cost of diesel) to drive the Jetta! If you add fuel costs, that means that a trip out Steinbach way and back costs about 50 dollars, and trip to Riding Mountain and back twice that much. Ouch!
I sometimes wish I had the drive to do researchy, fact gathering stuff like you brother. But I constantly fall short of this quality. Pam landed a gooder when she found you!
Have to admit – never stopped to think of all those added expenses on a daily basis…but even so, it’s worth the trip to Steinbach, right?! 😉
Don’t worry Prairiechick. We don’t have any plans to begin rationing our trips out your way. Nevertheless, compiling these costs sure effectively made the point that the cost of putting fuel in your vehicle is but a fraction of what it costs you to drive it.
If I looked at doing this like it was purely a chore, then I wouldn’t have done it Partly Jealous. It’s just fun constructing formulas that spit out the numbers for you.