While my mother was in town (she left on Friday), I was trying to make at least one jaunt out of the house per day in the car, just to build back up the sitting strength for that position. In trying to find errands to run, we decided it would be a good idea to get oil changes for Joelle and my car’s – it had been a while for both.
I knew we didn’t drive a lot, but after looking at our paper work to figure out when we last changed our oil, this is getting ridiculous:
- My car: It had been 9.5 months since my last oil change, and I only went 1800 miles. My manufacturer (Saturn) recommends every 3 months/3000 miles. So on the mileage number, I still had a while to go.
- Joelle’s car: It had been about 14 months, 3500 miles. Her manufacturer (Scion) recommends every 5 months/5000 miles. So she also had a ways to go, and it had been a year-plus (a little before we were married!)
How do we drive so little?
- Both of us bus to work every day
- Grocery shopping is mostly done around our neighborhood (Queen Anne, Seattle) – Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Metropolitan Market (and 7-Eleven, while we are at it, though we never go there) are all within 4 blocks – so we walk to all of them
- Most dinners, by ourselves or with friends/family, are on Queen Anne Ave or at our house
- Even our doctors are either 5 blocks from home or right by work. Some of the specialists I saw were a little farther away, so for those, we did drive.
- Given my back situation, I haven’t driven a car in 3 months! That helps keep things down :) Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things…
Needless to say, the rising gas and oil prices hasn’t had a major impact on our direct budget, thankfully. Chalk one up for the urban density crowd!