My answer was simple: I hadn’t thought about it.

Thinking globally isn’t easy. I have always been taught to write what I know, and what I know is how middle-class women in the US spend their money and make ends meet. I don’t know about the experience of women in Egypt, and what their daily lives were like before the revolution. I don’t know what percentage of European or South American women work 60 and 70 hour work weeks. I don’t know how mothers in Mexico or India or China provide for their children.  Our American personal finance columnists don’t cover those women, and I only know a handful of people who travel outside the US regularly. Heck, I think I only have one friend living abroad right now.

So it’s easy to ignore the fact that women around the world experience life vastly differently than we do in America. But every once in a while, I am reminded.

Today’s reminder? There is a protest going on in Saudi Arabia to empower women to drive. Because they currently are not allowed to. Or to travel or take a job without “male guardian” permission.  Um, how are you supposed to get a good job or an education without being able to drive to one?  Oh, right, you aren’t. And that’s the point.

I read “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” and “Persepolis” and I follow the news, so I know that women in Middle Eastern countries are extremely oppressed, even when on the surface things don’t seem so bad and even if Taliban jerkfaces aren’t forcing them to wear burkas and cutting off their hands and throwing them in jail because their husbands can’t keep it in their pants. But after I read the books and the articles, I go back to my desk and I work for long hours and I commute home and I cook dinner and I pay my bills …. and you know, life  just has a way of making me quickly forget to focus on social justice and fight for female equality in far-flung places.

Besides all the forgetting, sometimes I also think it’s easy to falsely believe things are better for women in countries just because you don’t hear about them regularly. For instance, it never occurred to me that women in Saudi Arabia can’t drive. Sure, I could have told you that if I really thought hard about it. But without stories being shared about this oppression, it falls off the radar. And since I don’t hear stories about, oh, I don’t know, schools for women being burned in Saudi Arabia, I kind of assume things are going OK.

I plead total ignorance and lack of a global network.

But today, in Saudi Arabia, women are getting behind the wheel and experiencing a taste of the freedom that comes with access to the road. Dangerous? Yes. But conventions are not challenged without risk.  And beyond a few women tasting that little drop of freedom, even under heavy oppression, women around the world are reminded of the inequalities that exist. And judging from the #women2drive campaign on Twitter, support is flowing in.

To those women driving  in Saudi Arabia today, I wish you the best of luck. I waited 28 years to get my drivers license because I was terrified of taking the wheel. Driving is scary and comes with a lot of responsibility. It puts you in control of a giant machine that goes fast, but leaves you to fend for yourself among chaotic traffic patterns, bad drivers, texting teens, and angry individuals. But driving is also liberating and educational. It enables you to say yes to opportunities you might have missed before, to visit new places, to expand your horizons. Saving for your first car teaches you financial responsibility, as does buying gas, insurance, and paying for maintenance.

Because it took me almost 15 years later than most of my friends to learn to drive, I’m probably the last person my friends would expect to be writing a post about empowering women to become road warriors. Yes, I worry about the number of cars on the road and generally advocate for walking or biking or public transportation whenever possible.

But driver’s license or not, I’m also fiercely independent. More so than advocating for public transportation in crowded cities, at the heart of this issue is finding your voice, empowering yourself, and standing on your own feet, unbound by the chains of inequality, free to roam as you please and discover your passions. And that I can wholeheartedly support.

So ladies, again I say good luck as you take the wheels. I’m cheering for you, and praying for your safety and freedom.

The post Global Thoughts and Women2Drive appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

One New Voice
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Oil New High: Tips on Saving Gas Money

Thanks for the great tips!

The post Why is Gas So Expensive? appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

After spending several summer weeks browsing sweltering car lots, test-driving fancy new models and listening to sales pitches (could car salesmen’s offices be any more dreary, btw?), I was ready to buy my first car: A Silver Subaru Outback 2.5i Premium with all-wheel drive (standard), all-weather package and moon roof.  (Insert dreamy swoon here.)

After making the choice of vehicle, I spent about a week drooling over the glossy booklet pondering add-ons such as trailer hitches and bike racks, and wondering exactly how often I would use my heated seats (!), while my trusty research assistant B was busy sending me links on how to prepare for a car purchase and negotiation points. He also managed to check inventories at nearly every Subaru lot in the nearby Chicago/Wisconsin/Indiana area and got in touch with no less than five dealers to inquire about the status of their vehicles and see who would offer us the sweeter package.

I finally managed to turn my attention to finances. My goal was to keep the vehicle under $26,000 before taxes. After much belabored conversation with friends and family, I decided that I would put down $15,000 on the day of purchase – a decision that made most people choke on their drinks and one that I’m sure will be controversial here, but I weighed my options carefully. I have been saving since I started this blog (you can read some of my early 2004 posts to read about my first savings account deposit) and my accounts have been steadily growing. I could have bought the car outright, but that would have taken too much out of my savings account for near-term (within five years) purchases such as a house and wedding. So, I opted to keep my reserves healthy and put down $15,000 vs. buying the car outright – using online calculators, we figured that this would keep my monthly payments under $300, which is about what I was paying each month on my student loans.  I essentially managed to keep my budget the same as it’s been for years by swapping the student loan for a car loan.  I knew that financing was cheap, and if I could just qualify for the lowest rates, I would stay true to my plan.

So I knew what I wanted, and how much I wanted to pay. Based on some advice found on Carbuyingtips.com and Edmunds.com, I began assembling a bulky folder filled with all my financial information, quotes from local dealers in the Illinois/Wisconsin/Indiana area, and all the e-mails I had ever exchanged with those dealers.

One of the handiest items I kept in the folder was my credit score and credit reports from Equifax and TransUnion. I went to www.myfico.com (with a coupon code, of course) and paid a small fee for access to my credit score. I was delighted to find out that after years of obsessively monitoring my bills, saving, making payments on time and learning about credit, I am in the highest percentile of credit scores (only 13 percent of Americans can say the same). Armed with this knowledge, I was ready to negotiate.

Rather than deal in person or by phone, we started e-mailing salespeople. It’s harder for them to claim they didn’t promise something when you have a record for every interaction. The quotes we received, with all our options and including freight charges, dealer fees, tax, title and license charges, ranged from $25,948 to $28,443 across four different dealers. $25,948. I had my car.

We confirmed that I would be eligible for 2.9% financing for 48 months, haggled over a few last options, and then set a date. Then, we planned a trip to the dealer.

The morning of my very first car purchase, I awoke excited. I wore a skirt, packed up my folder, and tried to calm my nerves. For some reason I was very nervous, like I was about to run my first triathlon.

When we arrived, my nerves turned into annoyance. The salesman had been to a bachelor party the night before, and presumably because B and I look kind of young, he felt compelled to tell us repeatedly how hung over he was. It was a hot July day and he was sweating profusely, with a bottle of Gatorade next to him at all times. He didn’t have the extras we negotiated ready when we arrived, and actually tried to weasel out of a few of them, but we had our folder of emails to show him his promises. (Plus we had B’s intimidating height and deep voice, and my serious eyebrows, as I mentioned in the previous post.) We assured him we had three other motivated dealers (and had the emails as proof) ready to sell us the same vehicle. Ultimately, he gave us everything he promised us, for the price he promised us.

The rest of the afternoon was a sea of paperwork and odd dealings with mostly balding men in short-sleeved button-down shirts and ties. We had to sit in a waiting room, then watch a power point about acid rain (on a PC at a sales rep’s desk) and sign some papers confirming we did NOT need a specialized coating on the car. Then back to the waiting room. Then back into another office, this one without windows and occupied by an ancient-looking temp who processed our loan paperwork and mistook my down payment as “Fifteen-hundred” instead of “Fifteen-thousand.” I got the impression he was surprised that a woman my age had that much to put down (honestly).  Actually I got the impression that no one at the dealer had ever dealt with a woman before, they all were so awkward. I didn’t see one other lady there. They may want to work on that.

After more awkward waiting, the car was ready. My hung-over dealer brought it around in the hot sun and turned on the air full-blast to compensate for his crazy sweating. I thanked him, promised to be kind on his post-purchase survey and hoped never to see him again. The car was all mine (well, mostly mine, technically it’s owned by the loan company until I pay it all off).

B took off in his old Mitsubishi and I followed him home, but before I did, I turned on the radio. The first song in my new Subaru? One of my favorites of all time, Eddie Vedder singing “Hide Your Love Away.”  I won’t soon forget the perfection of that moment, of me sitting alone in my first car in the sun, dressed up, listening to Eddie Vedder on the radio and enjoying some peaceful, air-conditioned quiet-time before my first solo drive in the new car – basking in the afterglow of a well-researched, well-negotiated purchase that I worked hard for.

The post My first car: A major purchase update in three parts (PART 3) appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

Once I determined that I wanted to buy a car, I enlisted my man-friend, B, to serve as my stoic sidekick on this epic journey. Not only had he bought a car before, he is also very tall and can be slightly intimidating to outsiders. Given the combination of my stellar “serious eyebrow” face and his height, I assumed it would be difficult for anyone to best us in negotiations. Also, since B would be using the car like I had used his Eclipse for the last 10 years, he volunteered to do a lot of the research for the purchase.

My first step was to narrow down the choices. I knew that I needed something big enough to hold bikes, camping gear, ski trip baggage and more. Yet, fuel efficiency was very important to me. The vehicle also needed to handle well in extreme weather; we get a lot of ice and snow in Chicago, and so 4-wheel or all-wheel drive was a necessity to me. And, for my vanity items, I wanted a sunroof for the nice days and heated seats for the frigid days. And I had a price range in mind: I didn’t want to spend more than $26,000 before taxes. I narrowed the field down to small/mid-sized SUVs, specifically the following: Subaru Forrester, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Santa Fe or Tuscon, Toyota RAV4.

I did consider leasing as an option, and buying a used car. But since I want to keep the car around for 10 years, just like B’s old one, buying new was more appealing to me. Plus, the interest rates advertised at the time were between one and three percent for well-qualified buyers, so the cost of an auto loan to buy the car outright was ridiculously cheap (a friend with good credit who bought her car two years prior got an interest rate near seven percent on a used car).

One more consideration was buying American. I did go to car lots and look at new Ford, Chevy, and GM models. But I really didn’t like the body styles on a lot of them. They all seemed so big and flashy – they also appeared to be built more on a truck foundation vs. a car.  Plus, some of them were assembled in Canada and Mexico – negating the “buy American” concept in the first place. And finally, I asked some business school graduates about buying American. If the cars are made elsewhere and the investors are global, what’s the benefit of buying American vs. a foreign car that’s assembled in the US? The answers were unconvincing. In the end, buying American was not the deciding factor for me.

So back to my purchase; I had settled on a mid-sized/small SUV. B and I spent a several weeks during the summer checking out car lots all over northern Illinois.  We typically went on a Sunday, when the dealerships were closed and no salesman would be around. It was an unbearably hot summer here, and there were days when we fried on the black top parking lots. But we felt it was important to see the cars in person, check out the available inventory, review the price tags on the windows, and see a variety of models in person. Sometimes the internet just doesn’t do a car justice, and I’m easily distracted by flash animation.

After I felt comfortable enough being around car lots, I was ready to take on test drives. We decided to test drive a number of vehicles at our local AutoBarn, which had many of the models I was interested in. I thought I was going to fall in love with the Subaru Forrester. Instead, I found myself drawn to the Subaru Outback. It was just as fuel-efficient as our Mitsubishi Eclipse, was made at the Indiana plant (with zero landfill status), held its value over time, earned excellent reviews from auto press and glowing recommendations from every Subaru owner I spoke with, came standard with all-wheel drive, and included an all-weather package with moonroof, heated seats, and more for under $26,000 before taxes and fees. Plus, it was fun to drive. During the test drive, I confess, I was a little too enthusiastic… B reminded me that hard-nosed negotiators with serious eyebrows don’t say things like “I can totally see myself taking this baby on a road trip!” while the salesman is in the car. Duly noted.

Once I had settled on the Subaru Outback, the next step was simple, right? I just needed to buy the car!

(Stay tuned for Part 3: Subaru Outback FTW! – or some similar title, coming later this week.)

The post My First Car: A Major Purchase Update, in Three Parts (PART 2) appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

At 28, I passed my first driver’s exam. Upon hearing this news, I cried. In the car. With the instructor.  I gave my dad a thumbs up from behind the wheel. Standing outside the DMV, he began to tear up.

My dad is not a crier. I think there have only been three other times in my life when I’ve seen him cry. But getting a license had been a long journey for me. I took the exam at age 16, and again at age 21. I began to think I would never drive. Getting my license was my Mount Everest. And my dad is a car guy, so seeing his oldest child earn her license after more than 10 years of trying (ok, half-hearted trying) was surely monumental. I was a licensed driver. We celebrated over brunch at a diner. The world rejoiced at the magnificence of my accomplishment.

At 31, I undertook another previously unimaginable feat. I bought a car. Here is my harrowing story, the first of three parts (because blog writing is supposed to be short and I wasn’t blogging when this epic saga unfolded).

…

I had been thinking about buying a car for at least a year. I was previously exclusively driving my man-friend’s 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse, affectionately named Carmen. Carmen was 10 years old, and though we loved that spiffy little silver firecracker and she was totally paid off, lately she was requiring monthly repairs – she needed new breaks, she had cracks in her underside, the engine was overheating regularly, and on and on. We were spending $500 here, $200 there. I started to question the value of making monthly repairs vs. making new car payments. Why sink so much money into something that only had a couple years left?

I had a few other reasons for wanting a new car. Carmen wasn’t reliable enough to take on road trips anymore. And since we use the train to commute to work daily, our car only serves two purposes: running errands locally, and traveling long distances. Furthermore, now that we’ve been doing more active pursuits like biking and triathlons, we were always borrowing my mom’s SUV (a Hyundai Santa Fe) for our road trips.  Carmen could only fit two people and a few bags in the trunk. Putting a hitch on to haul cargo wasn’t an option; she rode so low I tore skirt seams getting in and out of the car. And roof racks aren’t made to go with an eclipse. By last Spring, we were putting the money into repairs simply to run errands.

Around the same time that Carmen was sputtering, I finished payment on my student loans (hurrah!). I knew we needed a car, and I had some additional disposable income. The timing couldn’t have been better. I was about to do the unthinkable: my quest for a new car had begun.

(Stay tuned for Part II: Exploration (aka. Shopping Around) coming tomorrow…)

The post My First Car: A Major Purchase Update, in Three Parts Because Blogs Are Short…. appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

It happened last night, and it’s B’s car, so I feel terrible! There are dents in the door and a few 8-inch wide scratches (deep ones) in the paint. He cares for the car pretty meticulously, and although he said, “It’s OK, accidents happen,” when we talked about it, I’m still upset. I insist on fixing the door, but B says it will cost more than it’s worth… he estimates it will cost between $800-$1,500 to fix …on a 10-year-old Mitsubishi Eclipse. He says there are better things to spend my money on.

From my perspective, yes, it’s a lot of money, but you don’t ruin someone else’s car and then just leave it that way. Sure, it could have happened in a parking lot or parked on the street, but the point is that I did it. No amount of fresh paint can cover up that guilty feeling.

The post I hit the wall… literally. appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

I wouldn’t know because I don’t drive. According to my personal calculations, I am in the .00001 percent of Americans over the age of 16 who do not have a drivers’ license. (Close your mouth, pick your jaw up off the floor. I don’t drive.) I never had the money for insurance or a car, for that matter, and I’m no good at driving so I never got a license. I did flunk the driver’s test a few times, though – so you can’t say I didn’t try.

Now I have a permit to practice with, but driving is still a totally foreign concept to me. The first night on the road, I started practicing in the nearest mall parking lot, where I was promptly pulled over by some cartoonish mall cops in a golf cart. I rolled my window down giddily, smiled and shouted out the window, “I HAVE A PERMIT!” They said good luck and told me I couldn’t practice there. I’m currently ruling the mean streets of suburban Oak Park in my boyfriend’s silver Mitsubishi Eclipse, but he rarely lets me cross the busy streets and I never drive on the expressway. For all purposes, public transit is fine by me.

For those of you who CAN drive, now is the time to think about upgrading from ghetto-mobile to fabulous, according to CNN. The article claims that auto dealers are trying to clear lots and meet annual sales goals, so they are more willing to cut you a deal. You can read the article here:

http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/22/pf/autos/wednesday_holiday_car_shopping/index.htm

Happy car shopping!

The post From Ghetto to Fabulous appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.