Shameless Plug for the Toyota Matrix (and no, Toyota is not paying me)

This time last year I had a VW Passat--V6, heated leather seats--the works. I was never a car person and had no idea what a V6 even was when I bought the car (3 years old from Carmax). All I knew was that I liked the color and I'd never had leather seats before--let alone heated leather seats. Granted, back when I bought it I was still married to my first husband (that sounds so Elizabeth Taylor) and we had a minivan so the second car was strictly for whichever one of us wasn't toting the kids and their stuff.

In the divorce, he got the paid off car (the mini-van) due to circumstances that could only be explained in a novel because the whole thing was so crazy. Bottom line: Rich in-laws who hate you are not a good thing when you’re divorcing their son and they can—and probably will—make your life miserable. At any rate, I did get the Passat and the car payment that went with it—not a bad trade for getting out of that marriage.

The only problem was the gas mileage. First of all it required premium grade gas, which I initially thought was BS and continued to use regular. In care you’re wondering, when a car company says a car requires premium, they aren’t just trying to prove you for a sucker—the car actually does require the high-grade gas to function correctly. Those commercials about knocking and pinging? Those are the exact sounds your car will make if you use regular gas.

So fine, I got used to using premium. But something was wrong—there must have been a leak in the gas tank because I constantly had to get gas. On average it seemed I was getting about 19 mpg, or even closer to 17 sometimes. I had the shop look at it but nothing was wrong; little did I know but V6s guzzle gas. Who knew? It got to the point where I was fighting an ongoing battle to be able to go a full week without having to fill up—and this was when I was basically only driving to and from work.

Then this time last year I decided enough was enough—having a car payment was bad enough; having to pay almost $200 a month for gas was ridiculous. I decided to trade it in for something more fuel-efficient, not to mention with some semblance of storage space since I no longer had the minivan. I looked at hybrids first—the Explorer and the Prius. Both WAY out of my price range; I needed to maintain the same car payment after the trade-in. When I went to look at the Prius I noticed a cute car on the lot and asked what it was. It was a Matrix. Brand new, the top of the line model was about $18,000. I drove it and bought it, and it has proven to be a great decision.

It takes regular gas, which these days of course is huge. It kills me to pay $4.05 for a gallon of gas; I don’t think I could stomach paying $4.75 a gallon. I fill up every 7 days—occasionally 8. When Patrick and I went on a 250 mile car trip a few weekends ago it took 8.5 gallons of gas to get there—that’s about 33 mpg (calculations Patrick’s, not mine—math is not my thing).

So if you’re looking at hybrids thinking it’s worth the $25,000-$50,000 and up for a car that gets, on average, as low as about 25mpg and a high of maybe 50mpg (city only; highway is less (according to Real Hybrid Mileage Database). http://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/ , I strongly suggest you consider the Matrix. It’s cheap, has a ton of room (when the back seats are flipped down you can carry as much as any SUV with the back seats flipped down), gets great gas mileage and is, after all, a Toyota, so it’s reliable. Granted, it’s no V6 so the beauty of being able to go from 0-60 in no time with no sound will be a thing of the past, but the thrill of much lower gas bills each month almost compensates for it.