Weekend in the Valley

While our gasoline prices have dropped a little and are now hovering just above $4/gallon, they are still twice what they normally would have been.

I mow our backyard every Friday with the riding lawn mower and set the blade down to 2.5 which is rather low and may cut the grass too low in areas but it keeps everything growing at the same rate.  Some areas, the grass clippings are so plentiful that I  remow those areas at a setting of 3.0 or 3.5 for the sole purpose of spreading the cuttings around so that they cannot be easily seen.

Yesterday, my wife asked why I did not do that since it makes the yard look "nicer" and I replied to save gasoline...

Now, while this may not mean much to you, we try to maintain a NEAT appearance outside, even though many of our neighbors don't agree with us...  cutting the grass is just cutting the grass and how the lawn looks afterward is just part of that.

We treat our vehicles the same way so that after 7 years of ownership on these last two, 2015 Venza and Lexus, they look brand new inside.  We also follow the manufacturer's guide to servicing as well...  every 30,000 miles...  Typically, we drive about 7,000 miles a year so that works out to somewhere between every 4-5 years.

I just had both vehicles serviced at Toyota, the Venza was $500 and should have been $300 but I had my navigation updated after 7 years and the Lexus was a little more because it needed a water pump which was unusual since there was substantially less than 100,000.

Our plans are to keep these two vehicles for another 5 years and then maybe purchase one electric vehicle...  but, we are going to wait and see how that plays out...  especially as they work the bugs out of these EVs and have built enough charging stations to service properly.

While the rush to going green is moving faster than anticipated, it is nonetheless here and we simply must embrace its presence.  However, it becomes increasingly clear that EV ownership will not save us any money at all.

If fact, it could take about another decade before we EARN BACK all the money that we recently lost in the stock market...  and then, inflation will keep us down at the level we were at before the Biden Administration took office.

It may sound like a conspiracy but the keeps the average America from really getting financially ahead so that we never really challenge the wealthy people...

BUT...  this is just my opinion.