Dear fellow commuting Mustangs,
Wouldn’t it be great to save some money? Wouldn’t it be amazing to help save the planet? Wouldn’t it be the best to help save the planet, while, also saving money? Doing this is very possible! The biggest way to do this is to move to Silver City! However, if you do not to take such a big step, here are a couple of good ways to start: one is to take the Corre Caminos, and the other is to carpool with other students.
When you take the Corre Caminos you don’t have to pay for gas! For students of Western there is no charge for the ride to campus! If you take a smaller car it is maybe a little over twenty dollars to fill your tank; however, it only takes about ten dollars to make it to Silver and back, but money does add up. Depending on how often you have to come, you can save from a minimum forty (if you somehow manage to come once a week and only use ten dollars in gas to come and go) to a maximum of around four hundred dollars (if you come each day and decide to fill your tank each time), all in a single month! Taking the Corre Caminos will help you save money that you would otherwise be spending on gas.
Helping with gas isn’t the only good thing about the Corre Caminos. The mini bus also gives a good amount of time to go to classes. She leaves Lordsburg to come Silver at nine in the morning. Then she drops off the people and goes back to Lordsburg. She comes back again at around one-thirty or two and takes us back to Lordsburg at three-thirty in the afternoon. She makes several stops in both Lordsburg and Silver. She give about six and a half hours to attend classes. Some people get slightly more time that others because she makes several stops. Her main stop in Lordsburg is at McDonald’s. In Silver, she stops at two places on campus.These two stops are: in front of the Martinez building and on the road between the Fine Arts building and the GRC. You even get to choose which stop on campus you want to be dropped off at.
There are times when you cannot take the Corre Caminos because she doesn’t leave early enough to make it to class in time, or because you have classes after the times she leaves. It isn’t a problem because you can still carpool. Find other people who have classes the same day as you and go together instead of going in separate cars. You can each have specific days to put gas that way you won’t have to put gas each time; by doing this you will save money. If you have two people, you can will only spend about half and if there are three people only about a third would be use compared to going alone. That goes for both money and gas. So, the more people that go together, the more you save. You can also have a different person drive on different days, and take different cars. Using different cars will help keep the cars from being used so much. They will live longer and healthier lives than they would if they were used each time to go to Silver. This will help you save money that would be spent on maintenance. Also, if you’re tired and you don’t have to drive, you can sleep on the drive to Silver.
Maybe you’re just not comfortable with other people. When you carpool you do get used to the people you go with and they might even become your friends. Or maybe it’s that you don’t want to have to stay longer waiting for the other people, or you don’t want to leave earlier for the ones that have earlier classes.
When you come earlier or leave later you have extra time. With this extra time at school you can also let yourself study without the distractions brought on by family or the desire to go out with friends. It is very easy to get distracted when you have family around always making noise or telling you to hangout with them, it also goes for friends. You might even forget that you had work to do. Doing it at here at Western will help keep you focused. I have about an hour between each of classes. I know if I hadn’t spend that time doing my work, I definitely wouldn’t have gotten as much work done.
Taking the Corre Caminos and carpooling are really good ways to save money and save the environment from pollution caused gas emissions. Doing this is so much more beneficial to your wallet and the environment!
Sincerely,
Xiomara Cruz
References:
Service, I. R. (2018, November 7). Standard Mileage Rate for 2018 Up from Rates for 2017. Retrieved from IRS: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/standard-mileage-rates-for-2018-up-from-rates-for-201
