Several people I know have a treadmill in the garage or basement of their home. They bought it with great visions in their head of walking every day, but after the newness wore off, the treadmill began to gather dust – then it was folded up and put into storage.

One reader of The Simple Dollar invested almost $1,000 in pans for her kitchen. Six months later, she’s still mostly using the microwave and the pans are gathering dust.

One of my friends bought a netbook recently, thinking she’d use it all the time to keep up with her email better for her online business. It’s still in her purse, but she claims to have only used it three times in the last month. Instead, she still uses her cell phone.

I myself have done this. Take Wii Fit, for example. When I bought it, I thought it’d be great for establishing a simple cardio exercise routine. I do use it, but instead it just comes out once a week to play mini-games on.

Each of these purchases is essentially the same story. You have a behavior you want – a fitness routine, cooking good food at home, keeping more up-to-date with email – but you’re having some difficulty establishing it. So you make a big, splashy purchase in order to kick-start things – and then you find that didn’t do the trick either, and you’re left with a lot of money sunk into something you don’t really need.

Many people have stories like this (in fact, share yours in the comments!). Why is it so prevalent? I think there are at least three reasons.

First, we have the best of intentions. Most of us do actually strive to improve ourselves, but lives are complicated. Almost every moment is a balance of different things – the things we want to do, the things we should be doing, and so on. It’s often hard, even with the best of intentions, to push another routine in there, especially a time-intensive one.

Second, advertising appeals to those intentions. We see ads for exercise equipment, think about our goals, decide that “we could do that for twenty minutes a day,” and order the equipment. A good ad is designed to do that – prey on a notion already in our head and transform it into a purchase.

Third, a new routine is perilously hard to establish. You have to make yourself do it every day, at least for the first month or two. It doesn’t come naturally.

Add these all up, and buying a piece of equipment in order to jump-start a new routine is almost always a complete waste of money.

Instead, I propose some new rules for a new routine.

First, figure out a very simple routine – don’t dive in with a complex one. Walk for fifteen minutes a day. Practice the guitar for fifteen minutes. Cook one meal a day – and keep it a fairly simple one. Check your email three times a day. Check Twitter three times a day.

Second, try establishing the routine with minimal equipment. Don’t go buy a treadmill or new running shoes. Instead, go outside and walk every day for fifteen minutes – go around the block three times or so. Don’t go buy a netbook – instead, try checking your email on the equipment you already have. Don’t go buy $1,000 worth of pans – instead, buy one low-end pot and one low-end skillet and try making some very simple dishes every day. Don’t go spend $3,000 on an electric guitar – get an old acoustic one to practice on and see if it sticks.

Third, make room for the new routine. In other words, find an unhealthy routine and minimize it. Cut your television viewing down to an hour a day – or less. Trim down your internet usage if you use it excessively. Stop going out to eat so often – cut it down to once a week. All of these choices free up time – and that free time can easily be filled by your new routine.

Finally, make reminders. Leave your equipment out where you can’t miss it. Put your guitar in your favorite chair. Sit your jogging shoes there. Keep your pans right out on the stove. Leave recipes out where you can find them. In short, make your new routine screamingly obvious at all times, giving you the best chance possible to make the leap to maintain it.

Good luck on the new routines in your life.

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, as well as the five best posts from two years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.

One Year Ago (May 31-June 6, 2008)
Planning for the Long Haul: My Family’s Lifetime Financial Plan We’re still pretty much sticking to this plan a year later. Nothing has really changed, except for, to some extent, the “retire early” part, since we’re both passionate about our work. We’re also on track for our 2009 goal.

Money Magazine’s “7 Investments You Need Now,” Portfolio Theory, and My Own Plans for the Future A mixture of railing against the “fund of the month” type of financial writing along with how to translate it into something truly useful, as well as a primer on basic portfolio theory. Mmm… a tasty mix!

Making Frugality a Game For people who thrive on competition, this is one way to make frugality really work in your home.

Got Credit Card Debt? Ten Tactics to Use Right Now to Get It Under Control If you’re sitting there with a big mountain of credit card bills and you’re simply wondering where to go from here, here’s ten things you can do immediately to start taking charge of the situation.

Ten Clever Money Savers You Might Want To Try This Weekend Some of these are really timely, because they focus on tactics that work great in June but perhaps don’t work well in November.

Two Years Ago (May 31-June 6, 2007)
Ten Financial Matters I Wish I Had Discussed With My Wife Before We Got Married This is a pretty good list of things for any couple to discuss, particularly during the run-up to marriage, but also afterward. My wife and I would have started our marriage on a better foot with these conversations.

Comparing Yourself To An Earlier Generation – And Blowing The Comparison To Bits The financial reality of your generation is different than the ones before it – and the ones after it, for that matter. Don’t judge your success by what your parents did at a similar age – and don’t judge your children’s success by where you were at their age.

Save Time, Effort, And Money With A Monthly Home and Auto Maintenance Checklist If you own a home or an automobile, it’s well worth your while to spend an afternoon once a month practicing proper maintenance. Things will last longer and you will save money – a lot of it. Here’s a lengthy checklist to get you started.

The Simple Dollar Convinces Someone to Quit Their Job This was actually the very first moment when I realized that the things I wrote really impacted people’s lives. It was exciting, but simultaneously quite scary.

A Guide To Eating Well Without Spending A Fortune Although we spend more on food than we should, it’s primarily because we buy things like organic milk and free range chickens. Our baseline of food spending is actually really low, and here’s how we do it.

If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology, where all posts are listed in chronological order.

Eight Ways to Get More out of The Simple Dollar
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are eight great ways for new readers to dig deeper into The Simple Dollar.

1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader.

2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in!

3. Read my story of financial meltdown and recovery. The Simple Dollar isn’t based on what I’ve read in books or learned in school. I’ve made a lifetime of financial mistakes – The Simple Dollar is a record of what works for me during the process of getting my life on a better track.

4. Download my free 49 page e-book. Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page is completely free. It summarizes all of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way about personal finance in one tidy package – in fact, all of the main principles can be found right on the cover.

5. Follow me on Twitter. I post tons of interesting articles, quotes, follow-up material, commentary, and other material on Twitter. Follow me! If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s essentially an open discussion forum for people to share ideas and thoughts with other like-minded folks – you just choose the people you want to listen to and their ideas and thoughts are all delivered to you on a single page.

6. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month.

7. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I try to respond to as many emails as possible and I read them all. I may even use your question in a future article!

8. Email a great article you find to a friend. Find an article that you think your friend would love? At the bottom of each article, you’ll find a link that says “Email this” – just click on that, type in your friend’s address, and send it right along to them!

My three year old son loves to go to the grocery store with Mom and Dad. He wanders around with us, listening to our discussions about which products to buy, and quite often expresses his own opinions. He’ll remind us that he loves V8 Fusion (our preferred fruit juice, since it’s 100% and also is half vegetable juice) and often dallies for a long time near the Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers, as I noted two years ago (and depicted as well):

As we shop, we make tons and tons of little decisions along the way. Those decisions, on their own, seem inconsequential.

Should we buy the bulk can of diced tomatoes or the smaller can?
These tortillas feel softer, but they’re way more expensive – is it worth it?
The free range whole chickens are on sale! Should we stock up?

A choice one way or another here might save us a dollar or cause us to spend a dollar more. In the eyes of many people, it’s an inconsequential decision – just make it and keep going. One dollar doesn’t make a huge difference, right?

The problem is that each little buying decision you make is deeply tied to other buying decisions, whether consciously or not.

How so, you might ask?

All of our buying decisions are based on a set of principles in our head, ones that are often so well-grounded that they don’t even pop up in conscious thought.

Here’s a thought experiment to help you see what I mean. Imagine a product you would never buy in a grocery store – pork rinds, maybe, or perhaps insanely potent hot sauce. Now, what about that product would cause you to not buy it? You’re likely to pop up an immediate simple answer – I don’t like the taste or it’s unhealthy – but on other purchases, you’re quite willing to overlook that principle for other reasons.

In truth, when we make a decision to buy in the grocery store, we’re trying to reduce a big set of principles and inputs down to one split-second decision. And often we feel we’re completely justified in that decision – and we move on with life.

It is very easy to tease apart each little buying decision, tell yourself that it doesn’t really matter that much and that it’s okay to splurge, and then essentially ignore your final tally when you get to the checkout because each decision was justified in your mind. Doing that, though, is a game that will, time and time again, put your wallet in the hurt locker.

So, what can you do to overcome this problem?

The easy methods are the shopping list and the meal plan. Making a shopping list in advance of your visit to the grocery store simply serves to reduce the number of decisions you have to make. This, of course, leads you to making fewer bad decisions.

But that’s just the start. Once you’re in the store with your shopping list in hand, commit to three more things.

First, simply do not put anything in your cart that’s not on your list. Your list, if it’s thought out at all, should have everything you need for your meals for the next week. If you see something you feel like you need or deserve, jot it on the back of the list for next time.

Second, mark any items that you’re not simply searching for the cheapest version of. On our list, I like to put a little X by any item that I don’t intend to just buy the cheapest version of. For example, with diced tomatoes, the various brands and cans are identical in terms of ingredients, so we usually just get the cheapest version. This, again, reduces the number of opportunities for poor impulse decisions in the store.

Third, if you have specific brands in mind (because of coupons or because of previous buying experiences), put those on your list, too, along with the size. For example, we usually have a big stack of coupons for V8 Fusion (100% juice, half fruit and half vegetable). So, instead of just writing “fruit juice x 3,” I’ll write “46 oz. V8 Fusion x 3″ on the list. In other words, if you make the list more specific, you further reduce the number of potential impulse decisions in the store.

Using all of these techniques, you’ll end up making just a handful of in-the-moment choices in the grocery store – and with fewer potential decisions, you have fewer chances to make poor ones. The end result? A cart full of items that you actually want and a much smaller grocery bill.

One of the biggest reasons I like living where I do is that two or three times a summer, someone hosts a block party. The format is pretty simple – bring a side dish, grab a plate, fill up, and talk to people. Yet, I know from watching the hosts, the actual hosting can be really frenetic – the hosts often look completely frazzled, even if everyone else is having fun.

Block party. Photo by jeffk.

I had planned on having a block party early this summer to celebrate the release of my first book, 365 Ways to Live Cheap, but the release date wound up being substantially earlier than I expected. So I decided to push the idea off until the release of my second book (which I anticipate to be late next spring).

During the process of thinking about the party, I stopped by and had a chat with a person who had recently hosted one. He told me that it was (a) surprisingly expensive and (b) a lot more work than he expected it to be, but it was very worthwhile because it gave him an opportunity to meet so many neighbors – something I find very valuable, too.

So I resolved right then to plan out a frugal block party. If you’ve ever wanted to host a block party but have been thrown off the scent by fear of the cost and time investment, here are the tactics we’re using to trim both factors without reducing the fun.

Buy Only the Basics – But Buy Far in Advance As soon as you’re sure you’re going to host a block party – even before you set a date in stone – make a shopping list. The earlier you make a list, the longer you have to shop for the items – meaning, the more time you have to find huge sales on the items you need to get.

The items to look for are pretty simple: paper plates, silverware (I prefer biodegradable corn plastic silverware), napkins, and cups. Over a long period of time, it’s easy to find each of these items on sale somewhere.

Invite a Neighbor or Two to Co-Host This enables you both to serve as hosts and be involved in the meeting and greeting of everyone, but split the costs and effort in setting up, hosting, and tearing down.

Estimate High on What You Need Estimating high will cause you far fewer headaches than estimating low. The items that are left over can be saved and used again for other occasions, whereas if you start to run low on items during the party, panic will ensue and difficulty will follow – including high prices because you couldn’t shop around. Of course, if you’re buying in bulk, this likely will not be a problem.

>Rely on Guests for Side Dishes and Some Beverages Preparing a flyer for the party is key – and on that flyer, be sure to highlight some key information – your address, your phone number, and also a note to bring a side dish.

As for beverages, you can set out a few beverages in bulk – like water and tea – in self-dispensing jugs with cups, but if other beverages are desired, you should note this for guests who might come.

Depending on available seating arrangements, you may also ask guests to bring their own lawn chairs. In some neighborhoods, there will be a plethora of options – picnic tables and the like. However, you may want to have backups for some guests.

Borrow Equipment Don’t hesitate to ask the people you know well if you can borrow some items for the party, such as extra chairs they might have, extra tables, or even their grill. The more items you can borrow, the fewer items you have to invest money in for such a limited use.

What About Entrees? This is going to be an experiment in cooking for a large group, so go with something you can prepare easily in large quantities. I almost always think sandwiches are a good idea. Have bratwursts, hot dogs, and veggie dogs (for any vegetarians) – or have burgers (beef and soy options). Another option – pulled meat sandwiches.

Along with these, you’ll need to buy buns in bulk, as well as condiments. Again, plan this as far in advance as you can, so you can seek out bargains.

Get Cheap Help A big reason that you’re having this party is so that you can meet neighbors and build relationships, not run around on small errands. One good solution is to hire some neighborhood help – and one great solution for that is enlisting any teenage children that live nearby. $10 or $15 is a small price to pay to have someone making sure that there are no emergency needs or other things, keeping beverages rotated, and so forth, leaving you to actually meet and greet people.

The Week Before Clean! Clean your garage. Clean the yard and make sure it’s mowed two or three days before the party. Clean any portions of your house that people might use for the restroom – and also in event of rain. It’ll leave you feeling refreshed and more prepared.

The Day Before Borrow equipment from neighbors and store it in your garage. Begin thawing anything that needs thawed. Make sure all equipment that you’re going to rely on is in proper working order – fire up grills and so forth. Doing this now will save you a lot of money and stress compared to putting it off.

The Big Day Something will go off wrong. Expect it. Don’t stress out when it happens. Recognize that it’s just part of life, and make do as best you can. If you’re prepared for this, you won’t react with strong emotions and you won’t be drawn to throw money at it just to solve it.

Also, plan to cook so that a large batch of food will be put out thirty minutes after the start time. This gives the on-time arrivers plenty of time to mingle, get side dishes set up, and when people start going through the food line, the first batch won’t sit out there for long. I find that putting food out when people start arriving usually means many people just eat and run and many other people end up eating food that’s sat out for a long time.

The biggest thing, really, is not to panic. Something will go wrong. Don’t worry about it too much. Spilling a beverage won’t ruin everyone’s day. Nor will being fifteen minutes late with the entree. No matter what, don’t throw cash at the problem – just solve it calmly, with what you have.

Any other frugal and/or time-saving suggestions for block parties?

A career is like a brick wall. If it’s built well, from a collection of bricks that fit well together and are thoughtfully put in place, it can be a very strong foundation for whatever dreams you may want to reach for. A great collection of bricks, well assembled, will build a platform for you that allows you to stand tall in your profession.

Yet, sometimes, we find ourselves in situations where we must knock the wall down and start over – or so it may seem.

I argue that the entire scope of our professional life is a series of bricks. Every time we complete a class, we have another brick to add to our wall. Every time we complete a major project, we have another brick to add to our wall. Our choice of bricks – and where we place them in that wall – makes all the difference.

My Story, In Brick Form
I usually think that personal stories explain an idea very well to begin with, so let’s start with my college years. I made the unusual choice of double majoring in two “hard” sciences – biology and computer science. My coursework in these areas helped be to build two seemingly separate brick walls…

Yet they weren’t entirely separate. Any hard science has some elements in common with other ones: a strong preference for logical thinking, the scientific procedure, the teasing apart of complex problems. It’s easy to see how training in one hard science lends itself in a strong indirect fashion to other hard sciences. However, a degree in computer science does not open doors for a career in biology, and vice versa.

You’ll also note that third brick wall sitting over there, separate from the others but not quite as tall. This was my ongoing passion for writing, a smaller wall built of bricks made from my own self-directed projects and flailings about. We’ll get to that one later on, but for now, it’s clearly not up to snuff.

Luckily, late in my college career, I found a brilliant mentor who helped me to bridge those gaps. He employed me in his research lab, taught me many techniques for applying computer science to biology, got me into some graduate-level courses, and actually paved the way for many of my jobs right after college.

It was upon that foundation that I started my career. I spent a few years digging deep into life science data analysis using computers. I tore apart databases. I studied (and applied) various statistical models. And, along the way, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Yet, through it all, I still yearned to write. It felt like the thing that I was called to do.

So, as time went on, I began to seek out opportunities at work to communicate the ideas I was working on with others. This was hard at first – I’m a natural introvert and it took a lot of work for me to get over it. I started by taking charge of writing reports on the work that my lab was doing. Over time, this grew into making presentations on scientific data and scientific tools. Eventually, I was giving long presentations in front of rooms full of people who knew far more about hard science than I did – but I was able to communicate with them, translating the ideas in my head into a common language we could share.

It turned out that this work experience really opened the door to further exploration of my own writing. I began to take my writing in new directions, writing more nonfiction things and exploring new areas – writing about parenting and, eventually, writing about the personal finance changes going on in my own life – The Simple Dollar, in other words.

Eventually, my writing took off and I made the choice – for the time being – to focus entirely on that for my career.

Will I return to science? There is a very large part of me that wants to go back to graduate school. There’s also a large part of me that feels very compelled to write. Perhaps someday I’ll wind up writing science fiction or “pop” science books along the lines of Fermat’s Enigma. I’ve certainly built a foundation for it.

What Is a Brick?
A brick is any distinct element that helps you build a career. Some common bricks include:

Close professional relationships People who you’ve helped in the past and you can rely on for help in the future if you were to need it. Close confidants or that guy down the hall who owes you one and sticks by his word both apply here.

Completed coursework What classes did you take in college? What degrees did you achieve? Both are important – one builds skills and knowledge, the other is pure resume fodder.

Projects, completed and otherwise A completed project teaches you skills and becomes perfect resume fodder. Yet, I’ve often found that failed projects tend to provide you with much more in terms of personal growth.

Natural talents Everyone has some natural talent in some area. Yes, some are blessed more than others, but each of us has something to build from.

Membership in reputable organizations Groups of like-minded people are not only resume fodder, but are also great places to build strong relationships that can only help you later in life.

Training Much like completed coursework, training both offers you extra skills as well as potential juice for the ol’ resume.

Choosing Where to Place Your Bricks
As you can see, a few bricks are somewhat set in stone (talents and passions). For the most part, you can’t control these – they’re bricks that are already put in place for you.

Most bricks, however, are ones that you choose. You choose what to major in. You choose what classes to take. You choose which projects to tackle. You choose what organizations to join. You choose which friendships to cultivate.

Each of these bricks requires some time investment and distinct effort on your part. A semester spent in a class. Several afternoons spent with a business acquaintance. Three weeks of burning the midnight oil on a project or a presentation. A year spent as president of the Rotary Club.

Some bricks fit anywhere – they’re transferable skills. Time management. Administrative skills. Creativity. Interpersonal communications. Information management. Personal development. Leadership. All of these things fit well into any wall you might want to build – and can be used over and over again.

Other bricks can only be used in certain walls. Specific training. Specific projects. Certain organization memberships. They’re vitally important in building some walls and completely useless in others.

A Brick-Based Alternative to Knocking Down Your Wall
So, let’s return to the situation I described in my own story. What if you have two completely separate walls, one built from your own passions and interests and another built from experience and work?

My suggestion is twofold.

First, work on those transferrable skills. They fit into almost any wall. Find opportunities to work on them and grow them whenever you can. This will not only help your career, but it’ll help any other directions you might choose to take in life.

Second, look for “bricks” that can build a bridge between the two. Jump hard on any project at work that lets you incorporate pieces of your other passions. You’ll build skills and produce a brick that bridges both walls. You can even try to seek these out – suggest possible projects at work, or use your work for inspiration in your other endeavors.

The Final Question
The real question here is simple.

Right now, are you working on another brick to add to your wall so you can stand above the crowd? Or are you peddling in place while others add bricks to their wall – and their walls grow just a bit taller and stronger?

Long time reader Bob writes in:

I like reading all of your suggestions about making a grocery list and searching for bargains. My technique is actually pretty simple. I trust Consumer Reports completely – they’ve never led me wrong. So each month when I get an issue, I write down their “best buys” in each product category. That’s what I buy – I just look for the best deal among these. I often use coupons for things on that list, too.

I actually really like this idea – it provides a wonderful balance of getting quality items for a good price. In fact, I decided to give it a try myself with a few product categories just to see the results with my own eyes, so I pulled out the May 2009 issue of Consumer Reports and went shopping with five product categories in mind.

Kids’ Breakfast Cereal
Consumer Reports identified four best buys for cereals for children, balancing health, tastiness, and price: Cheerios, Life, Kix, and Honey Nut Cheerios.

I pulled out the grocery flyers this past weekend and found a sale at Target on the General Mills cereals (Cheerios and Life). I then flipped through the coupons and quickly found a coupon for those cereals.

End result: the price for a “double box” of Cheerios or of Life, after the coupon, was cheaper than almost any other cereal in the aisle, with only some generics beating them. After doing an ingredient and Nutrition Facts comparison, Life was our product of choice. The kids utterly love it and it’s pretty good for them, too.

Glass Cleaners
Consumer Reports identified five best buys for window cleaners: Windex No Drip Foaming Action, Sprayway Ammonia Free, Windex Crystal Rain Ammonia Free, Glass Plus, and Streak Free with Ammonia (the Wal-Mart store brand).

The solution here is a simple one: shop at Wal-Mart and get the store brand at roughly a third of the price of the other brands.

Coffee
I’m far from an expert on this category (as I don’t make coffee at home – keeping it as an out-of-home treat keeps me from getting addicted to the morning joe), but Consumer Reports identified Eight O’Clock 100% Colombian, Caribou Coffee Colombia Timana, and Kickapoo Coffee Organic Colombia as the three best choices.

In the stores I visited, Eight O’Clock 100% Colombian was the cheapest of the three by far, usually costing less than $5 for a 12 ounce bag of whole bean coffee. Here’s the trick, though – there were many coffees that were less expensive.

Since I’m not familiar with this area, I asked my wife for some input and she said that unquestionably, the price premium of the Eight O’Clock coffee over Folgers is worth it. She claims the volume difference in the containers is deceiving, since it takes substantially more Folgers to make good coffee than whole bean Eight O’Clock. So, three votes for the Consumer Reports model.

Tub & Tile Cleaners
Consumer Reports says Comet Scratch Free Disinfectant with Bleach, Ajax with Bleach Scratch Free, Kaboom Shower Tub & Tile, and Green Works Natural Bathroom Cleaner are the best choices, with Green Works being not quite up to the standards of the other but the best of the “natural” cleaners.

Coupons for Comet are extremely easy to come by and they reduce the cost of Comet below the store generic brand for that item. It works well for cleaning our tubs.

Creamy Peanut Butter
This was the one area where there was some debate. Consumer Reports identifies Smucker’s Natural and Smucker’s Organic as the two best buys for peanut butter.

Smucker’s Natural is substantially cheaper than Smucker’s Organic, ringing in at $2.49 for a 12 ounce jar at my store of choice. However, there were several peanut butters available for substantially less on the shelves. Having tasted Smucker’s Natural, I can say that it is quite noticeably tastier (much stronger peanut flavor) than many of the lower-end brands, and the texture is better, too. An ingredient comparison shows that it’s healthier as well.

For me, Smucker’s Natural would be the purchase if I had a coupon for it. Otherwise, I’d put off buying the peanut butter.

My Conclusion
From my experience, Bob’s strategy simply works if you’re trying to get the maximum value for your dollar (and not just seek the bottom dollar). This strategy pairs up well with looking at coupons and flyers, reducing the price benefit that the store brand has over the “best buy.”

Will I switch to this strategy? Perhaps not completely, but I am starting a list of the Consumer Reports best buys. It works surprisingly well.

In the next few weeks, I’m going on a lengthy road trip with my wife, my children, and my parents. We’re going to visit several relatives that are spread out all over the southern part of the United States. Along the way, we’re planning longer stops in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the New Orleans area, and the Memphis area (in fact, if you’d like to have me speak at your library or other event in one of those areas in early June, contact me).

Our trip, as currently planned, is 2,548 miles in length – and that doesn’t include the inevitable driving around in local areas or any side trips we decide to take along the way. Yes, it’s long. Yes, it’s fairly intimidating.

Originally, our plan for the trip had involved taking two vehicles – our Prius and my parents’ car. From our perspective, this was a good idea, since the Prius gets great gas mileage, but my parents’ car doesn’t do as well.

As we discussed the trip more, we came to the realization that it made much more sense to drive in one vehicle, for several reasons.

First, one vehicle at 20 miles per gallon consumes the same amount of gas as two vehicles at 40 miles per gallon. In short, even if one of the vehicles is our Prius, we’re still better off purely in terms of gas driving a minivan.

Second, maintenance costs over 2,500 miles are significant. The average car has 5.3 cents per mile in maintenance costs beyond fuel – oil, transmission fluid, coolant, tires, and so on. That’s a total of $132.50 per vehicle over the trip.

Third, 2,500 miles on your vehicle is 2,500 miles of depreciation. Again, the average car depreciates roughly $0.20 per mile – this is very hard to precisely estimate, but it’s a real value. Again, by reducing to one vehicle, we save $500 in depreciation. Note, here, that depreciation includes major repairs and other such factors.

Fourth, two cars means double tolls. On our trip, assuming no detours, each car would be paying somewhere around $15 in tolls. Reducing to one car saves another $15.

In total, we realized that we would save roughly $650 by using just one vehicle on this trip – and that assumes no fuel savings and also assumes no detours, no construction, and no environmental impacts.

At that point, we really beat the pavement to accelerate the purchase of our second vehicle. The problem, though, was that we couldn’t find a vehicle we really wanted.

So, finally, my wife raised the question: would it be cheaper to just rent a van for this trip?

The trip is scheduled to be nine days in length. I did some calling around to local rental services and found several vans that could be rented for $400-500 for the length of the trip – unlimited miles.

So, let’s look at the math. We would save depreciation on two vehicles ($1,000), maintenance on two vehicles ($265), toll on one vehicle ($15), and a small amount of fuel savings, too, for $400. That’s a total savings of $880.

In order to make sure there wouldn’t be any nasty surprises, I contacted our auto insurance provider, who told us that coverage while driving the rental would be essentially identical (in terms of our cost) to coverage if we were driving our own car. Thus, no need for the additional cost of rental car coverage.

Thus, for our purposes, the decision has been made – we’re going to rent for this long road trip and split the cost. This choice will save us $440 and also save our parents $440.

Sometimes, thinking outside the box a bit can save you a surprising amount of money.

Recently, I’ve started contributing a weekly article about saving money on small business expenses to OpenForum, a site that covers a wide variety of small business topics.

I’m also hosting those articles here on The Simple Dollar in its own “small business” section. If you’d like to visit this section, you can check it any time you like by visiting the “small business” link along the top of any page.

So far, I have two articles posted there:

Dreading the Cost of Software for Your Business? Try These Free Solutions discusses a giant handful of great free software solutions for small businesses, enabling them to redirect their resources to other things.

My favorite one, though, is A Culture of Empowerment, which discusses how my father used empowerment of his fishing employees – myself included – to drive them to achieve more, and also fuel his own business.

Articles from me will be appearing there weekly, and I’ll include new ones in the weekly roundup. Any time you want to browse through them or check for a new article, just hit the “small business” link along the top of any page.

Here are some additional great personal finance articles from around the web.

25 Traits of the Not-So-Well-to-Do This is basically a checklist of financially bad behaviors that I considered completely normal just a few years ago. (@ free from broke via free money finance)

Five Secrets to Sustaining Good Financial Habits I especially agree with the idea of surrounding yourself with like-minded people. If you’re trying to be thrifty while spending your time with big spenders, you’ll find it very hard to save money. (@ frugal dad)

Office Space: Why I Rented a Place to Write I went through almost this same internal debate. My final solution was easy – I just started closing the door to my office all the time. It was a great psychological barrier. (@ get rich slowly)

Argentine Wine Hack: Make Bad Wine Better This is a really clever trick! If you buy lots of inexpensive wines, you’re going to get some lemons, so this is a great way to turn those lemons into lemonade! (@ wise bread)

How to Review Your Equifax Credit Report This is an excellent look at how to read a credit report. Sometimes, they can be really confusing. (@ bargaineering)

Personal Change You Can Measure I find that, if you can make a change measurable and keep measuring yourself on a regular basis, that measurement becomes a great motivator for change. (@ think simple now)

55 Best Ways To Save Money: Frugal Ideas From Our Readers This is simply an awesome collection of tips. (@ digerati life)