I would advise any who is going to commute to school to make sure their car is checked and maintenance. I bought my '97 Ford Taurus GL right before school started it had seemed to run fine. So it's Wednesday morning the day before my first big test and my car just dies on the highway. I'm sitting and wondering how could this be and I had been ignoring the blinking battery light. I figured I could get it towed to Car-X and be in and out with no problem.

I was wrong I had came in at 8:00 my class was at 10:00 and I didn't end up leaving there until almost 5:30. I made sure I emailed my teacher and she was nice enough to let me make it up on the following day. Back to my point about keeping your car up to date. If I would've paid just $60 in preventive maintenance I would have saved myself time in frustration. I ended up having to pay $370 for a new battery install and a new radiator.

As a commuter living so far away I've started riding the bus. I normally fill my gas tank up at the beginning of the week about $35-40 worth. When I catch the bus I'm paying $4.50 round trip.  $40-13.50= $26.50 in savings and total for the month about $106.