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Defensive Driving

October 29th, 2005 at 02:33 am

Last week I completed a defensive driving course online (only $25 - let me know if you'd like the link) for my insurance discount. One of the things it stressed was the 12 second rule. Basically that you should always be looking ahead and around you for 12 seconds ahead - to be alerted to possible "collision traps." Well, tonight I was driving home from having to go into work (on my day off, long story) and was pretty tired. I was about five miles or so from home on a stretch of road that I've driven many, many times, and is not in an area where you'd expect to find pedestrians. I wasn't keeping my 12 second vigil. Something just happened to catch my eye, and I realized that there was someone walking across the road in front of me with a dog! I came with in inches of hitting the person and their dog. All I can say is that it had to have been an angel that caught my attention. It just makes me sick to think about what *could* have happened! Thank God nothing *did* happen!!!

Today I saved myself some money, and I spent money. I called SBC (phone) to find out how much a basic, no frills line, plus dial-up, plus my cell phone would be - ~$95/mo. Then I called Charter (cable) to cut back to basic cable, and cut my cable internet. I did end up cutting back to basic cable, but I was offered a really good deal to keep the cable internet. So, I decided to stick with it (instead of going to dial-up). I am saving approximately $70/mo by doing this.

I bought my brother his birthday gift from Circuit City via mypoints.com. He must have a sixth-sense or something, because a few minutes after having bought it, guess who I got a call from? Only my favorite brother in the world. Wink Smile Then I purchased "you need a budget" from Karen's blog. It looks much better than anything I've ever put together before, and much better than Quicken or MS Money. I'm going to have to spend some time exploring it.

When I had my car inspected today, it almost didn't pass inspection. All because of my windsheild wipers!!! Luckily the garage I had it inspected at had wipers, so I just bought them there, and passed inspection. When he first said those words though " doesn't pass inspection" I think my heart sunk to my stomach!

After getting my oil changed, my dad and I went to Walmart to pick up some Morningstar (veggie) products. Walmart has them on sale right now for $2.28 and we have a *bunch* of $1 coupons. Smile Smile While we were there I got a call from one of my surveyors telling me that their Palm had lost the survey program. He has an assignment early tomorrow morning, and needed his Palm for that. So it ended up that I had to drive an hour there (because of traffic) and an hour and a half back (traffic) just to fix his palm!! There went a 1/8 of a tank of gas!

Something else I did on my way home was to stop at Albertsons. My dad had asked me to pick up a paper, and I had decided on a new costume for the Halloween party I'm going to tomorrow night and needed safety pins. I also picked up two bottles of nail polish and a bottle of nail polish remover. One of my rewards in my exercise plan is to give myself a manicure - so I bought a french manicure set (I love the look of a french manicure.)

Btw - I am going as "static cling." I'm going to wear my black pedal pushers (longish shorts) and a black shirt. Then I'm going to safety pin various pieces of clothing all over me. Wink Safety pins are more expensive than I thought they were, $2 for a package of 50. Frown

I switched over to a new electric company this past week. Today in the mail I got a notice from ERCOT telling me my account had been switched over - making sure I had done it, and not someone else. Ironcially, I also got my monthly bill from TXU, which was MUCH MUCH better - only $60. Hopefully with my being more vigilant about keeping unneeded lights off, as well as the new companies lower rates (we'll see) my next bill will be even lower.

A pretty spendy day overall.

B-day gift for Ryan: $30
YNAB: $20
Car Inspection: $40
Wiper Blades: $8
Oil change: $22.47
Gas: $20 (not quite full - $2.31/gallon)
Albertsons: $18.31 (newspaper, nail polish, french manicure kit, remover, etc)
Music Download: $.95 (walmart.com -- part of my reward system)

Keeping It Frugal in Texas,
Laura

1 Responses to “Defensive Driving”

  1. Anonymous Says:
    1130596543

    I had a similar driving experience. When I was in the military driving cross-country from NY back to California I encountered my "jaywalkers" in the middle of an Interstate Highway! It was just outside of Gallup, New Mexico on I-40 and I had just crested a rise going about 70 MPH and I saw in the distance what I thought were two people walking (not running) across the Highway - observing my predicament I figured I had a couple of choices: (1) slam on my brakes; or (2) go to left-hand lane and just drive right by them (this worked for me when I caught a deer in my headlights at night once). I chose option (2). As I got closer I thought for sure they would stop and let me go by but this was not the case. It turns out it was a Navajo Man escoring his 4'8" Mom across the Highway, and neither of them ever looked in my direction, it was as if they were daring all the cars to hit them. I noticed this and gunned my engine and ended up going into the gravel median with my car because they kept going and stepped directly into my path. I safely made it around them and back onto the Highway, but I then berated myself for being "wreckless" and decided even though it was only 1PM to pull over and get a motel for the day. It wasn't worth my life or others.....

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