Day In The Life of Baz

Now Lava over at Save Money might not like this much, but hey. I’ve been checking my gas mileage on and off lately, since some environmental issues have changed. I used to average about 24 MPG in the city and 29 MPG on the highway. That’s not that bad for a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer. So I guess I shouldn’t complain much. Since I’ve moved down to Plano TX, I’ve decided to start tracking it again since so much has changed. First of all, my route now involves traffic, which I didn’t have to deal with before. Also, for my musical entertainment, I’ve added two 12″ speakers enclosed in a speaker box, which of course is dead weight. These two things should have crippled my mileage, but in reality the average is about the same. When you think about it, that makes a lot of sense, since the reduction due to the speakers and the traffic would be offset by the fact that I’m driving solo these days. Yep, since Lava’s not here with me, I’m 100+ lbs lighter (I think I can safely say that she’s over 100 lbs without getting into too much trouble). So all in all, things have averaged about the same.

I think I’m beginning to notice a pattern here. Every time I decided to do something to clean up the car, something gets screwed up. The last time I decided to clean up the mats in the car I, like an idiot, stuck then in the washer at my apartment complex. When I got them out they were all ripped up. The car was less that two months old.

This time it happened again. I woke up, went to church and decided that I need to wash the car. We recently had a dust storm, so I decided to get stuff a lil’ bit clean up. There were also a lot of gifts from the birdies. Now, I’ve never got one of those deluxe washes before. What I needed was the under carriage spray so I picked up deluxe one for $8.00. You know, those with all the wheel cleaner, clear coat stuff, etc. Came out looking great.

Since the car wash was close to Walmart I decided to go get some stuff that I’ve been missing. I parked the car, got out went inside, did my shopping and came back out. When I came out I decided to admire the new wash. That’s when I noticed it. Some red paint. Apparently the idiot parked next to me opened his door and deposited a nice chunk of red paint on my driver side door. No dent, but it sucks.

Now I know you’ve heard it before, but the cliche is true: “I just saved a ton of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico“. I’ve just gotten full custody of the Lancer. Yep, Lava let go of it and gave it to me so that I can go to work. Previously, the car insurance was in her name and she was signed up with AllState. The cost was somewhere around $85.00 for her only. We’ve been dragging out feet on adding me to the insurance for a while since it would make the cost sky rocket because I was under 25.

Since I would have the car full time from now on, we decided to bite the bullet and add me to the insurance. It was supposed to go into effect in February. The price was somewhere around $150.00., which was expected since I’m under 25. Just for kicks we decided to go online and check out what Geico had to offer. After the huge list of questions we got a quote for $82.85. So you’re thinking what’s the big deal a couple bucks cheaper right? But that cost includes me. Also, the coverage was slightly better. So to recap: We added me to the insurance and got better coverage yet the cost was cheaper at Geico than it was with only Lava at AllState.