car wash

One of the more significant differences between my husband and me is that I take more seriously what I see in print than he does. Hence why I read so many frugality/productivity blogs—I’m looking for advice I can take to heart. Thus, there’s always a point of cognitive dissonance when I see something that personally doesn’t work for me.

Consistently, one of the points that comes up frequently amidst lists of ways to save money or be more frugal is, to quote this article, “Never use a commercial car wash, always do it at home.” I’ll admit, on the face of it, it seems a reasonable way to save money. I’d say it’s about $5-$8 to get your car washed each time, and assuming you have all the equipment you can do it a half hour or less for relatively inexpensive. Right?

See, the trick here is “assuming you have the proper equipment.” I… don’t. My husband and I just moved into our first home in September of 2006, and we have been slow at acquiring all the equipment we need for such a trial. Plus, in my frugality, I tend to rely on the law of attraction to bring me the tools I need; I’ve had positive experiences thinking, “Gee I sure could use X” and having it show up in my life. (Sometimes this is on behalf of my parents. Thanks, Mom and Dad!). I also am disgusted with the fact that everyone on my block probably owns a lawnmower, a snow blower, and at least five other pieces of heavy equipment ending in “er” which they use maybe twice a month. Why not share? Oh, right, we’re American, and we’re sensitive about other people touching our heavy equipment.

So, I’ll admit it. I don’t own a hose. I’m not even sure I have an outside water spigot to connect it to. Consequently, I don’t own any fancy attachments to put on the end (I don’t even know if they’re necessary. This is how much I know about washing cars, see?) , special soap, car wax, or other things that can be put to use in softcore carwash pr0n. And there’s a marginal cost in acquiring these things—and acquiring the knowledge—required to carry this out.

What is that cost? I’ve used Amazon.com costs here, just to be consistent (not including shipping; I would not seriously order a hose on the internet, I promise):

100ft hose: $29.99
Starter set including wash, attachment head, and filter: $13.04
Liquid wax: $3.99

Total cost: $47.02. That will probably get you about 10 washes, according to the product information for the soap ($6.99 a pop by itself). Admittedly, you shouldn’t need to replace everything else every time around (that’s why this is a marginal cost), but the soap and the wax will need to be replaced. So let’s estimate $3-$4 per wash. And this is assuming I have an outside water spigot, which I’m thinking I must. Then again, I don’t have a doorbell either, so I’m not putting a hell of a lot of faith in the previous owners.

… the savings, she underwhelms–especially when you consider how often I wash my car. Hint: last time I did, I was living in Watertown. Of course it should be washed more often (at least anecdotally it should), but equations like this need to concern the actual facts rather than idealized notions. In actual fact, I live in the Boston area and it snows six months out of the year. You should wash your car the most frequently when there’s salt on the roads, but I am SO not standing in a snow drift to wash it myself. In truth, I would MAYBE save $2-$5 a year if I washed my car myself, for a marginal cost of $47.02. So. Not. Worth. It.

I’m sure some reader will point out that washing a car need not involve equipment more complicated than a bucket, water, and household soap, but as usual time and money form a proportional equation. While this will be cheaper it will probably take more time (i.e. lugging the buckets of water). And that’s the biggest lesson to take away from this: as always, the biggest intangible is my time. It’s at a premium, between my full-time job, school, hobbies, and the weekends where I do nothing but play Civ IV.

The final thing is: see how ignorant I am about washing cars? I seriously do not know what I’m doing. Admittedly, wikihow could probably help me out, but I’m not sure I trust my aged 1994 Toyota Tercel to the vagaries of the site that brought you How to Organize Your Hats in a Stylish Way. Just reading this article (the car wash one, not the hats one) I find out so many things I have to be careful of—don’t wash the car in direct sunlight. Be careful of the runoff going into water systems. Don’t use dishsoap. Use microfiber cloths. Use a filter to avoid waterspots. Turn around three times and burn incense.

I’m sure Mr. Ockham would cut me with his razor at how I’m complicating the simple act of washing a car, but it’s all to make a point. To be frugal, you have to consider your habits; your spending, your knowledge, and not anyone else’s.

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