Obviously what Trent lists as part of this step is only a small sampling of potential ways to save money regarding your car. The ideas that I hadn’t considered before were cleaning your air filter and turning off the car during long waits; though I imagine that turning off your engine in slow moving traffic could be very annoying to the person behind you when traffic does move along. While I know he has mentioned these details elsewhere, Trent did not point out some big ways to save money on your automobiles, which is what car you buy and how much you pay for it. Make sure you buy a car that is best suited to your lifestyle. Some people do well with a small minimalist car that only seats a couple people and has little cargo space, as well as great gas mileage. Others need to haul things more often. Picking up or delivering things yourself may actually save you money in the long run, if it is a regular part of your lifestyle not a once and a while event. Then you need to consider the cost and reliability of the car you do purchase. In general, I don’t find new cars to usually be worth it because they lose so much of their value in the first few years. I’d rather have a reliable used car, preferably one I paid cash for, rather than financed. There’s nothing worse than spending a ton of money to repair a car when you are still making payments on it.

To any readers who have been following this series I must apologize. The insanity of the past few months has impacted every area of my life including this blog. But I still want to finish this series because while it has helped me, I also believe my experiences have the potential to help others.