How I saved on Car, Car insurance, and well, anything car!

I can't lower my car payment. I can't do much about my insurance. Gas is ridiculously high again. I don't have the money to be pouring it ALL into my vehicle. Boo on that.

So here's what I did. And its not rocket science.

*I split up my car payments. It's due on the 1st and I get paid on the 15th and the 30th. SO... I take them a partial payment on the 15th and one on the 30th. It saves me interest in the long run and makes me not feel broke all at once. At the end of my car note I will have saved myself around a full payment. Hey-i'll take it! Especially since i'm not really DOING anything.

*I quit speeding. Now I drive like an old lady. Well, old lady for me. No more speeding, cruise control is my best friend. I have a second by second gas monitor on my nav system that I can press. WHen I am at a stop light and it turns green and I start accelerating I can see that at that moment I get about 3 miles to the galon. When I speed up and get to around 40 I'm at 25 miles per hour.. so on and so forth. I try to make it a game to drive the speed limit and keep my level around 30 miles to the galon. I'm not late anywhere b/c if we have had enough tickets we have gone to defensive driving and learned that speeding by 10 miles per hour actually gets us somewhere about 45 seconds before the person not speeding. I had to grow up and realize that fact. Also by not speeding and not feeling in a hurry I just FEEL better and don't hate driving so bad. My gas is lasting longer and I haven't gotten in a ticket in over a year. Woop woop :)

* I drive my car insurance company crazy. I KNOW when tickets are supposed to be dropping off and I CALL Them and ask "hey what is my rate gonna be... hey how much is my insurance going down"... I make them aware that I KNOW its supposed to going down so not to even think about trying to pull one over on me.

* oil changes, tire rotations...blah blah. I hate that stuff. I wish my husband would do it for me, but since he doesn't I have to be on top of it.

All in all I KNOW I have saved several hundred dollars a year by being aware of how much gas I am burning, what I am spending on gas and insurance. IT's like a water hole that I am throwing money in every month and it blows...but we gotta have a car.

How are you gonna save on cars?