Tried to get all the honey-do chores done today in time to catch the “Ice Road Truckers” on the History Channel tonight. At 7:00 is a re-broadcast of last week’s season premiere, and then at 8:00 is the new show of the series.
I’m totally hooked on this show. I am fascinated that these men take their lives in their hands to drive trucks over the frozen rivers and frozen ocean in the Arctic. They are modern cowboys with true grit.
Read a cool article in the Washington Post yesterday about a study that has linked drivers that have a problem with road rage to their use of bumper stickers on their cars.
A recent study by Colorado State University social psychologist William Szlemko concluded that:
Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other “territorial markers” not only get mad when someone cuts into their lane or is slow to respond to a traffic light, they also are far more likely than others to use their vehicles to express rage —by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.
And you may be interested to know that I do not have any bumper stickers on any of my cars. I think they look trashy. But I have seen a few that made me laugh. Last week I saw this one on an old Humpty:
“If you are going to ride my ass . . .
. . . at least pull my hair.”
My step daughter had borrowed one of my cars for the past week as hers was broken down for some unexplained mechanical problem. I don’t mind letting her borrow the car for short periods, but she makes it very difficult to keep my resolve to close down the “Daddy ATM.” Her mother and I decided at the first of the year that we must stop shelling out hundreds of dollars each month to “help out” as long as she continues to choose this path down the wrong road.
As I was cleaning out the car upon it’s return, I noticed a paper stuck between the seats and the console. It was a paper receipt for a payday loan. I was shocked and dismayed, but then again, since we told her in no uncertain terms that the cash handouts from our wallets are over, I suppose she thinks she has no choice but to use those types of cash advances to tide her over.
The problem with this is that she never seems to have enough money to pay the loan off and she ends up renewing the loan, putting herself farther behind. This is exactly the type of behavior that we are trying to discourage and she must be even more hard headed than I thought if she is not learning this important financial and independent lifestyle lesson.
Payday loans are a great tool for a one time emergency cash advance. It is supposed to be used for things like emergency car repairs and emergency medical expenses, with the key words being “emergency.”
Now I know I just said that her car was broken down, but I’m not sure I believe her. The car was in excellent condition when we bought it for her last year. I check it over once in a while to make sure the oil is changed and the fluids are OK, the tires are OK, etc. I hadn’t noticed anything going wrong so I have to wonder what the emergency repair was for and she has managed to not share that information with us. If it is true, I hope she is going to handle this payday loan as a responsible adult and pay it off with her very next paycheck.
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.
Last year we bought a full size Chevy van from a used car dealer that advertised online. We were looking for something to use at the warehouse and didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it – just something mechanically sound with no frills.
The one we found was a good price and since we were in a hurry, we agreed to buy it. That meant someone had to fly out to California to pick it up and drive it back, which wasn’t a big deal. The hardest part of the plan was figuring out how to get from the airport to the dealer, which involved a cheap hotel room on the way because of the flight schedules. That all worked out and a few thousand bucks later we had the keys to a van.
I have full coverage insurance on the Tahoe and the Mazda, so I called my insurance agent to let him know that we bought the van and needed to add it to our policy. Since it was the weekend, all I got was his voice mail. Since we made the decision so quickly and had to buy it quickly – good deals never last – we had bought the van and driven 1,200 miles before Monday morning when the insurance agent got my voicemail. I was worried that if something bad happened on the way back we might not be covered by insurance. But thankfully the trip was uneventful in that regard, and as it turns out my full coverage insurance policy covers a new vehicle purchase for the first few days anyways.
The great thing about having that little insurance umbrella is that we were covered for the trip back but when we got back I had the chance to make some calls to get competitive quotes and also go online to find the best price on Van Insurance. We ended up paying a little under $100 per month for the van’s coverage by adding it as an additional vehicle to our other insurance. But it is always worth checking and getting new quotes it’s time for renewal.
This reminds me that I took some great snapshots on that trip back from California. Let me see if I can find a few and post them on the blog to share – it was a great trip. And we’ve got a good work van, now.