Projo Cars Blog

Oh for the days of yore when gas was affordable!

Was it just over a fortnight ago that I wrote about getting sticker shock at my local gas station when the price was $3.52 a gallon for regular?

Now it’s $3.75!

And I got another shock last Friday when my American Express bill arrived and found I had spent $400 on gas last month.

Certainly I probably drive more than the average noodle – from Jamestown to Providence and back every day for starters – but that number sure set me back a bit.

In fact, it sent me to the kitchen table with pencil and paper to look over my spending patterns – and I bet there are plenty of you out there doing the same thing.

In my case, it was not a pretty picture, not disastrous, but certainly undisciplined enough wake me up and decide on some changes.

Obviously one immediate step would be to trade in my Volvo station wagon for a smaller, lighter, more fuel efficient car. But I hesitate. With a 5-year-old, I am concerned about safety and know that with him strapped into the jump-seat on the armrest in the middle of the rear seats, he is as safe as he can possibly be. And he likes looking straight out through the gap in the front seats.

If Volvo EVER got its act together and brought over a clean diesel or hybrid, I would be first in line.

(C’mon Ford, we Volvo owners are typically green, liberal and Democratic – and proud of it! Come out with a super-green car and we’d be standing in line around the block.

Instead we have the new XC70 which I mused over the other day until I got to the sticker and saw it gets a combined 17 miles to the gallon. Forgeddaboudit!)

So I will stay with my station wagon with 130,000 miles on it because I frankly cannot afford to get into a new car right now anyway. But I am budgeting for a change next year at the latest and it will certainly be a hybrid or clean diesel – and sadly probably not a Volvo.

But I will be making fewer trips to the big retail warehouses like Walmart, Target and Gosh Knows What. The prices in these places are SO cheap, I always leave thinking what I have saved rather than what I have spent.

Let’s face it, $50 for a $100 bag of stuff I don’t really need is still $50 out of my pocket for a bag of stuff I do not need – and I am congratulating myself for my financial acumen!

Am I a dope or are these halls of consumer delight just brilliant at what they do? Both!

- Peter C.T. Elsworth, pelsworth@projo.com

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