Unless you live way off the grid (and if you are reading this you probably aren’t) you’ve noticed that vehicles here in the US are getting bigger and bigger.\u00a0 This trend has been going on for decades and shows no signs of slowing down even as gas prices climb.\u00a0 And I don’t get it.<\/p>\n
I grew up on a farm driving pick ups so you’d think I would be all over this trend.\u00a0 But I’m not.\u00a0 I’ve driven compact cars most of my adult life and I currently drive a 2104 Kia Soul.\u00a0 I started with compact cars because they were what I could afford.\u00a0 I’ve stayed with them for the gas milage.\u00a0 If I only go to work and back- no side trips- I put about 55 miles a day on my car.\u00a0 \u00a0I am not interested in selling a kidney to pay for my commute.<\/p>\n
If you have a family of 7 or need to travel with a significant number of tools for work I understand getting a big ol SUV.\u00a0 But the majority of the people I know who have big SUVs have neither.\u00a0 Many of them drive less than 10 miles as their daily commute.\u00a0 My sister, who I love with all my heart, has a vehicle that I like to say is larger than her first apartment.\u00a0 \u00a0She has 2 kids, age 15 and 21.\u00a0 Her commute is maybe 2 miles.\u00a0 But she’s had big SUVs since my nephew was a baby and shows no sign of going back to something smaller any time soon.<\/p>\n
So why do so many people drive gas guzzling behemoths when they don’t need to?\u00a0 \u00a0Some people think they need the room (when they really don’t).\u00a0 Some people think they are safer.\u00a0 Some people just like to show off and think a bigger SUV is a status symbol.\u00a0 It IS easier to get in and out of an SUV vs. a standard car.\u00a0 However, my aforementioned Kia Soul-\u00a0 which is classified as a subcompact crossover SUV- i.e. a tiny vehicle-\u00a0 offers dropping $100 every time you fill up.\u00a0 Also- fun fact- a Kia Soul is considered a very safe car because it has a boatload of air bags.<\/p>\n
I will never fully understand why so many people feel the need to buy so much more car than they need.\u00a0 It seems like a waste of money and I don’t know anyone who loves throwing money away.\u00a0 So you do you- I’ll be over here in my little Kia laughing all the way to the gas station.<\/p>\n
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Unless you live way off the grid (and if you are reading this you probably aren’t) you’ve noticed that vehicles here in the US are getting bigger and bigger.\u00a0 This trend has been going on for decades and shows no signs of slowing down even as gas prices climb.\u00a0 And I don’t get it. I grew up on a farm… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bright-shiny-objects","category-things-that-make-you-go-huh"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/small-car-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}