Rides and Wraps

Years ago, under the influence of Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the Car Talk guys, I started holding on to my cars. If the car broke, I would fix it, because Tom and Ray said it's a misconception that car-repair costs go up geometrically as the car ages. In fact, the costs level off, and the plateau is far lower than what you'd spend on new car payments. Over your life, the Magliozzis point out, this can add up to more than $100,000. You can pay for a lot of trips to Hawaii, they said, with a chunk of money like that.

I'd like to propose a corollary to that. I think we should indulge ourselves with small expenses that make life happier and better. I don't have a car payment right now, which saves me whatever it would cost to pay monthly for a new Camry. With a small part of that savings, I get name-brand plastic wrap. Cheap plastic wrap seems to have an affinity for itself: The instant you tear a piece off the roll, it bunches up like a filmy little fist. Then you spend many seconds of the only life you'll have (that we know of) unsticking the damn thing.

Name-brand wrap is either heavier or there's some engineering miracle going on, but at any rate, you tear it and it seems much tamer. It hangs there in your hand, open and flat, ready to start wrapping things right away. If you can avoid frustration and save time by making a small extra expense, you get real improvement in your life. It's difficult to measure with numbers, but it matters. I don't do extra work to pay for a new car every couple of years, and I don't spend extra time unbunching cheap plastic wrap. And as it happens, I just got back from Hawaii. It was nice there. But hey, get a new car if you want—I'm just sayin'. : )