Kitchen Table Math
I read the snarky, glib comments President Obama made to the man at the recent town hall meeting in Pennsylvania who asked about high fuel prices. Gas is approaching $4.00 a gallon here. Our President blithely suggested that the man trade in his old gas-guzzler (because everybody knows that anyone who would even dare to ask about the high price of fuel must be an anti-environment wastrel who surely drives a gas-guzzling urban assault vehicle) for a new hybrid from one of the US car manufacturers so as to save money and, of course, the planet as well.
This set me to wondering about how much money I would save, and whether I should dump my beat-up but noble 12-year-old Suburban (which once hauled my wife and me, and our 3 car-seat-sitting, sports-playing, art project-making, fun-loving kids around town and on trips, but which is now my work car) for one of the vehicles for which the President of the United States is currently a haughty shill.
I am what is now called "underemployed," and my wife and I own a struggling small business, which incidentally employs several working moms. Like many people in our circumstances, we aren’t able to make large capital acquisitions easily, but we're not averse to making them if there's a tangible, near-term benefit. We sat down and did a little kitchen table arithmetic. Although our kids are now in college, we still need a large, commercial-sized vehicle because we frequently have to haul large amounts of gear to shows and demonstrations in our business.
Our big old gas-guzzling 2000 Chevy Suburban, tank after tank, gets an actual 16 miles a gallon. That equals $.25 per mile @$4.00 a gallon and we put about 15,000 miles per year on the 'Burb which all adds up to annual fuel costs of $3,750. We also get the oil changed every 3,000 miles faithfully, and we buy tires, wiper blades and batteries when we need them, but we figure that’s a push because we’ll do that with the new vehicle if we buy one. (It’s interesting to note that at $2.75 a gallon, which is where gas prices were before the current hysteria-speculation-induced price run-up, that’s $3,047 making the annual differential $703). But either way you slice it, that’s real money.
The new apples-to-apples comparison for us is the GMC Yukon Hybrid which is touted to get 22 miles a gallon, or $.18 per mile for a total fuel cost of $2,700 per year. The fuel cost differential is $1,050 per year, or, said another way, $.07 per mile.
That's real money too, but when one acquires a new vehicle, there are other costs to consider.
I checked with my insurance agent and the insurance differential between our old ‘Burb and the new Yukon is $180/month or -$2,160 a year. But wait, there are still other costs. The monthly payment on the old 'Burb is $0.00. The monthly payment on President Obama's new Yukon Hybrid (after an initial down payment of $5,000 which I would be supremely lucky to get for the 'Burb at auction) is $640, or an additional annual differential of -$7,680. This, added to the additional annual insurance cost differential is -$9,840 per year. Still with me, Mr. President?
Oh, but, when it comes to saving the planet, who’s counting, right? When it comes to incurring that kind of cost, for people like us, it is we, ourselves who do the counting. The President’s dismissive generalizations, runaway demagoguery and effete snobbery sadly don't make the cash magically appear in our bank accounts. We, like our customers, associates and colleagues have to earn what we spend. We focus on every cent because that’s what it takes for us to get by month to month. We’re not whining, mind you, because we are thankful for what we have, but I will confess to a certain amount of irritation when the leader of the free world casts people like us as unthinking, uncaring, wasteful foulers of planet Earth. We are not uneducated, unsophisticated, un-environmentally aware cretins. And neither are we ignorant, nor unmindful of the speed with which our work product has become worth less and less over these last three difficult and punitive years, because on all that, we can also do simple kitchen-table math.
I read the snarky, glib comments President Obama made to the man at the recent town hall meeting in Pennsylvania who asked about high fuel prices. Gas is approaching $4.00 a gallon here. Our President blithely suggested that the man trade in his old gas-guzzler (because everybody knows that anyone who would even dare to ask about the high price of fuel must be an anti-environment wastrel who surely drives a gas-guzzling urban assault vehicle) for a new hybrid from one of the US car manufacturers so as to save money and, of course, the planet as well.
This set me to wondering about how much money I would save, and whether I should dump my beat-up but noble 12-year-old Suburban (which once hauled my wife and me, and our 3 car-seat-sitting, sports-playing, art project-making, fun-loving kids around town and on trips, but which is now my work car) for one of the vehicles for which the President of the United States is currently a haughty shill.
I am what is now called "underemployed," and my wife and I own a struggling small business, which incidentally employs several working moms. Like many people in our circumstances, we aren’t able to make large capital acquisitions easily, but we're not averse to making them if there's a tangible, near-term benefit. We sat down and did a little kitchen table arithmetic. Although our kids are now in college, we still need a large, commercial-sized vehicle because we frequently have to haul large amounts of gear to shows and demonstrations in our business.
Our big old gas-guzzling 2000 Chevy Suburban, tank after tank, gets an actual 16 miles a gallon. That equals $.25 per mile @$4.00 a gallon and we put about 15,000 miles per year on the 'Burb which all adds up to annual fuel costs of $3,750. We also get the oil changed every 3,000 miles faithfully, and we buy tires, wiper blades and batteries when we need them, but we figure that’s a push because we’ll do that with the new vehicle if we buy one. (It’s interesting to note that at $2.75 a gallon, which is where gas prices were before the current hysteria-speculation-induced price run-up, that’s $3,047 making the annual differential $703). But either way you slice it, that’s real money.
The new apples-to-apples comparison for us is the GMC Yukon Hybrid which is touted to get 22 miles a gallon, or $.18 per mile for a total fuel cost of $2,700 per year. The fuel cost differential is $1,050 per year, or, said another way, $.07 per mile.
That's real money too, but when one acquires a new vehicle, there are other costs to consider.
I checked with my insurance agent and the insurance differential between our old ‘Burb and the new Yukon is $180/month or -$2,160 a year. But wait, there are still other costs. The monthly payment on the old 'Burb is $0.00. The monthly payment on President Obama's new Yukon Hybrid (after an initial down payment of $5,000 which I would be supremely lucky to get for the 'Burb at auction) is $640, or an additional annual differential of -$7,680. This, added to the additional annual insurance cost differential is -$9,840 per year. Still with me, Mr. President?
Oh, but, when it comes to saving the planet, who’s counting, right? When it comes to incurring that kind of cost, for people like us, it is we, ourselves who do the counting. The President’s dismissive generalizations, runaway demagoguery and effete snobbery sadly don't make the cash magically appear in our bank accounts. We, like our customers, associates and colleagues have to earn what we spend. We focus on every cent because that’s what it takes for us to get by month to month. We’re not whining, mind you, because we are thankful for what we have, but I will confess to a certain amount of irritation when the leader of the free world casts people like us as unthinking, uncaring, wasteful foulers of planet Earth. We are not uneducated, unsophisticated, un-environmentally aware cretins. And neither are we ignorant, nor unmindful of the speed with which our work product has become worth less and less over these last three difficult and punitive years, because on all that, we can also do simple kitchen-table math.
