Frugal Moms

     The one thing that saved the most money in the last 12 months was having my husband ride a bike to work.  If there were only one thing that I had tome to do to save money it would be to either ride to work or car pool.  Although it seems like a no brainer with gas prices around 4 dollars a gallon, alot of people in my area still aren’t car pooling.  It’s depressing actually.  When you hear a middle aged man complain about spending a third to half of his pay each week to get to work, but then he hops into an SUV or Hummer and drives off, it makes you wonder if people just like to complain.

I actually took the time to ask this man several key questions.  Did he need his truck for the work he does?  He said no, his job is mostly in an office.  Does he have a friend or business partner that drives to the same office at the same time everyday?  In fact he did, the lady in the next office was his neighbor.  Has he thought about asking to carpool or share a ride with her?  He couldn’t do that.  When i asked why, he only responded it wouldn’t sit well with him.

Perhaps this man was uncomfortable with asking for help.  Perhaps I should have asked, did he ever think she might have trouble paying for gas to get to work?    Then ask if he would offer her a cheaper solution of car poolng with him for half of what she normally pays?  The reason I bring this up is simple.  This is an ideal situation to car pool.  It’s his neighbor and they work in offices across from each other.  However, pride or shyness is preventing him fromkeeping more of his money.  If I had one bit of advice to give to save money, don’t be too proud to car pool.

In my experience it was a blessing when our “gas bill” off 144 a week ended.  I paid off all our bills that were past due, and started building an emergency fund.  We hopefully will never have as high a “gas bill” again.  Just think about what you could do with what you spend in gas each week.

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