Why the Price of Gas Has Such Power Over Us
There are two things in life that most of us would be pleased enough to spend our money on: vacations and the price of gasoline. And many of us can get our vacations started with a single stopover in Mexico City. But the price of gasoline does not only affect our vacations. It has great power over us.
As a good friend of mine likes to tell me, “You can see how much of your earnings are spent on gas.”
When you look at a car price chart, you can see that over the course of an entire week, a single day’s worth of gasoline usage can completely change the cost of the entire ride. And that is just for one car.
A single tank of gas can completely change the price of your next car.
I used to work on Wall Street and the day I got my first car, I took it to the dealership and told the owner that I could not afford to pay $8000 for the car that we were offered, so I was going to take my car to work and turn it into a taxi.
I knew that if I had a car that cost $60,000, I would be able to pay for it with a single day’s worth of gas money, or the minimum wage of $9.25 an hour. But, with a car that cost $60,000 and I only made $12 an hour, I knew that at the end of the year I would have to go to work and take a ride to the airport because I needed to be there on time for my flight. But, since I only made $12 an hour, I could use the gas money from my car to cover the cost of that trip to the airport.
On my second day driving this car to work, I went to the bank, took out a loan for $12,000, and had the rest of my money available to me on my next pay day.
On your third day driving this car to work, you do the same thing. You take out a loan for $13,000, and have your money available on your next payday to cover that month-long trip to the airport.
And when I got home, I was exhausted
