Fiesta

Bought myself a new car yesterday - almost new, anyway. It's a 2013 Ford Fiesta with 30,000 miles on it. I've been toying with the idea of getting something better on gas for the college commute and I saw this one sitting at a dealer when I went to Indy on Sunday. The Missus drove it home from the dealership and according to the in dash readout, it was getting 38 mpg @ 55mph. She stopped at the gas station by the house because the tank was pretty close to empty and it cost less than $30.00 to fill it up. I've already spent $268.00 this month on gas. Some of that was for snow removal but most of it went into the truck. The trip to Indy didn't help but there were a couple of snow days at the school that partially offset that trip. I should be able to cut my fuel bill just about in half and get another 10 years out of the truck with the lower number of miles I'll be putting on it.

I had a couple of interesting conversations during the course of purchasing the car. The lady at the bank said her husband needs to get something like the Fiesta because he drives about 50 miles each way to work. The car salesman has an even longer commute. I'm assuming he doesn't have to make a car payment but if he's buying the fuel, that can't be cheap. It's interesting the number of people who commute long distances. Fuel cost, maintenance, insurance, time spent behind the wheel - can't imagine doing that for 40 years. If you're making $20.00/hour you're only taking home $15.00. Unless you're driving something that gets real good mileage, you're spending more than an hour's worth of your daily labor on fuel alone. Plus, in this bad weather we've been having, an eight hour day can easily turn into 12 hours with a snowy commute. 

The lady at the bank also said she used to teach school. Taught for one year, got what was to be a summer job at a bank and never went back. I wonder what the turnover rate is for school teachers compared to other jobs/professions? I personally know quite a few people who've left school teaching for greener pastures. I did see that Indiana is thinking about tossing the Common Core and coming up with their own standards. That might improve things but before I applaud that move, I'll reserve judgement to see what they come up with instead.

Stay warm and have a good weekend.