An article on Yahoo News says that the adage of needing to change your car’s oil every 3,000 miles is no longer true. With modern advances in the types of oils and the new engines, most cars do fine with an oil change every 5,000 or 7,000 miles – some even at 10,000 miles. What a blessing that would be for my wallet.

It used to be that you could get an oil change for $19 at Firestone or one of the regular car and tire places. Then the price went up to $24 but you could sometimes score a $5 off coupon from the Sunday paper. Now it’s gone up to $33 and I haven’t seen a coupon in ages. So, like gasoline, the cost of oil changes has gone up quite a bit these past few months and to be honest, I think we’ll have to start pushing the envelope on the amount of miles in between. Instead of every 3,000 miles I’ll see if we can get by on every 5,000 for a while.