So I started thinking about something yesterday... My current monthly truck payment for my new Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie QuadCab is $537.89. My monthly Insurance bill from Geico is $92.57. My monthly average gas bill is $350.00. This comes to a grand total of $980.46. A couple of out of the norm trips to wherever would round my gas bill up and bring the grand total to a $1000.00 a month. A THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS! Just to drive around, and I pretty much do not go anywhere but to work, and to hockey. THAT IS 12,000.00 A YEAR! You could by a meager house around in these parts for that kind of scratch, and be building some nice equity. Or, you could invest that money into mutual funds and make a killing. I suppose ultimately it is not realistic to dream about what you could do with the full 12 grand, because you would still have to get around somehow, but lets analyze.

You could buy a brand new Mini Cooper fresh off the lot for 17 grand, so the payments on that bad boy would be roughly $250 a month, and the gas bill would roughly cut by 75% since the Mini gets 4x the gas mileage of my truck, bringing gas down to roughly $85 a month. Insurance would drop quite a bit as well. Let's estimate that it would drop down to 60$ a month. It can't really be half as much because only a portion of the insurance premium is for your own vehicle replacement. So that would give a monthly total of $400 a month after rounding out a bit, which is $4800 a year, a savings of $7200.00! On top of all that, I am sure there are even cheaper cars that get better gas mileage.

I love my truck, and I certainly don't mind paying the premium to drive such a fantastical ride, and it sort of relates to my theory of splurging in times of prosperity. When things are good, and you are doing well, live a little, because you only get to ride this planet once (usually), but to some extent, it is sort of disgusting to spend money like its nothing, when a lot of other people can hardly get by month to month. On the other hand, fuck 'em, because if they used their brains like me they would have access to the same resources I do.

I am not exactly sure what all this means.