"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

Gas and desks
May 28, 2008 - 7:15 pm

While at work today.. my phone rang. This is an odd occasion. I hardly ever get calls... and never at work. Well, not quite never since I just said I got one today.

It was a call that completes a story from a short bit ago.... 'twas loudsiren calling to notify that office depot finally got around to putting through the credit application for their store card. I was there... Sunday I think. Wankers.

With a smile on my face, I declined it. Sure call itself is too long. There's some overly long pauses in the automated speech.. but so be it. Is it money well spent? I don't know... it's not much, like $80 a year.

Speaking of cost... perhaps you've seen the adds about 2.99 gas for three years? I got to wondering, just how much money is that? So let's make some basic assumptions:

12,000 -- how many miles driven in a year. It's a pretty standard number that gives you just over 30 miles a day (that's weekends too).

20 -- average mile per gallon. If you want to get crazy with the math go with a city and highway number.... and break up your mileage by type. I personally don't care that much.

$5 -- the average gas price for the next three years. Sure it's $4 now... and say $5 next year and $6 in the final year.. that's $5 for an average.

Total gallons bought? 600.

Total cost? About $3,000.

Savings thanks to the $2.99 deal? About $1,200.

I thought it'd be more. I mean... $1,200 on the price of a car? Not so much... Did I do that math right? You'd save on average $2, right? Yep, 2 x 600 is 1,200.

If the average price goes up to $6, you're saving 1,800. That's a nice savings, but still not "huge" in terms of car costs. The marketing folks are smart. It's been a while since I shopped for a car, but aren't most of the 'rebates' or 'cash back' offers they have more than $2,000? So they pull those offer the table an give you something that sounds sexy to get your attention...

So you aren't getting any gas for free, you're paying for it up front in the car (and over the life of the car). And.. you'd probably get less since a new car should average better than 20 miles.

Anyway.

I've decided to wait and see if the desk/chair goes on sale for father's day. That's soon enough... and sort could be something they'd put on sale. The only hitch might be if the card offer of no interest goes away between now and then.

But.. do I really need the card? No, I just want to skip the interest and do the payments over time.