One of our brilliant readers, Jeanie Mellick, has some great car tips:
With each new car I buy the car it’s own set of “towels” that match the interior. I always keep one laid out covering the trunk area (large bath size) and then if any groceries spill, it just gets tossed in the laundry.
I put hand towels on the floor for the kids muddy shoes/sports equipment/etc. They are very handy, and so much less costly than getting your upholstery cleaned.
Another trick I use is to just throw the Windex and paper towel roll in the car, and then clean windows, doors, etc. while waiting in the car pool line, etc.
You can also keep a bag of “food stash” in the trunk to keep drive-through trips to a minimum. I keep packs of goldfish crackers, Gatorade, etc. so I can just give the kids something healthy rather than hit up McD’s for fat filled fake chicken!!
Finally, home schooling is saving $$$ big time on gas!
Do any of you have some good tricks to keep that damned car from gobbling up our time and money? Get your lazy butt to comment below or shoot us an email. We’d love to hear from you.
i drive by myself about an hour each way to baltimore for class, so i do a lot of my “reading” for school in the car. because of my learning disability, i get textbooks on CD from recording for the blind and dyslexic (these require a special player), but many books are also available on audible.com. i keep the player out of sight in the trunk when i’m not using it.
it usually doesn’t substitute for actual reading 100%, but it helps me get the idea of what is being discussed, so when i get home i have less trouble processing what is on the page.
on a completely different subject, i also like to keep extra bank deposit slips and envelopes in the glove compartment. my bank doesn’t offer envelope-free ATM deposits, so i like being able to have everything ready ahead of time, or in case i get to the ATM and they’re out of envelopes.
We drive back and forth to the mountains quite often, glorious Rocky Mountains, and we have gotten into the habit of not only keeping a very well stocked first aid kit but a stuck-in-bad-weather-or-avalanche kit. We have fleece blankets which are good for early morning drives with the kids. We also have these shiny, silver blankets that pack down into our bad weather kit as well as candles and matches to keep warm. There’s also dry food for the family, water and a disposable camera to take pictures in case there’s an accident or in case we see a sasquatch while we’re stranded in a snow embankment on the side of the highway.
To save money on gas I take my two dogs for a ride and they shed all over the passenger seats. Now when people see the fur covered seats they usually volunteer to do the driving.
Our car has a tape deck, which means it used to be littered with tapes (some for me, some for the kids). Then, we used a cd player that plugs into the tape deck, and the lighter jack… which made for better sound and choices, but left the car littered with cds, tapes, the player, and cables running all over.
Now, we use an iPod, and the same headphone-jack-to-tape-deck device, and so there’s only one cord, no tapes, no cds… so much easier.
I’m a big fan of audio info too. Audio books and podcasts far outweigh music in my listening life.
well, a lot of the time i’d much rather be listening to music
it’s just that spending that much time commuting on a regular basis feels like a waste if i don’t take advantage of it somehow.
Putting together a kit like that has been on my “todo” list forever. Thanks for the inspiration to move it up a few notches. I’d hate to have Hannah and the kids get stuck somewhere without much more than a cell phone and some chocolate bars.
I loved this! As a man mostly clad in black…this would work like a charm on me.
Ahhh…the joys of a digital life. It’s amazing how compact our audio/video lives have become in the past decade.
Fortunately my wife’s office is just a couple of miles from mine. Unfortunately our house is 25 miles away. We have two cars and she works at home two days a week. The other three days we ride together. We usually take her big ass suv because she drives in the morning while I grab a few extra minutes of snooze time. I fill it once a week and fill my car once every two or three weeks instead of once or twice a week. Always nice to save some $$.
I got cheap ($4) lapdesks from the craft store, one for each child to use in the car. It allows them to color or play with small toys on their lap during long car rides. It is also helpful when snacking in the car. They each also have a bag of special car toys that live in the back of the car. These toys do not come into the house at all. Every now and then I rotate them.
We keep a snack bag in the car too, along with a first aid kit. In the front seat I ALWAYS have a container of baby wipes. They come in handy just about every single day.
I like the idea of using the wife as a chauffeur while you snooze. Good work sir.
The matching towels idea is a great one. I’ve created my share of upholstery stains thanks to spilled groceries, trash bags, etc. that I’ve hauled in my trunk.
We keep a box of baby wiped and a roll of toilet paper in the back of our car - just in case! When my son was potty training this came in real handy a time or two.