If you have an SUV

If you have a gas guzzler, it probably does not make economic sense to sell it now.

Gasoline, even at $4 a gallon, is probably a small fraction of your expense of owning and operating a car, which the AAA says costs about $8,000 a year for a small sedan and about $10,000 a year for the larger model (about $30 per day), assuming you drive 15,000 miles per year (which is 300 miles per week, which is 40 miles per day). Gas at $4 at even 20 mpg, is costing you on average about $8 per day. So of that $30 per day it costs you to own an operate a car, only about 1/3 is the cost of gasoline. Even at $7 dollars a gallon, the gasoline would still cost you less than $15 per day. Add to that cost your lifetime risk of being killed in a car accident of about 1 in 70 and your much higher lifetime risk of being injured in a car accident, and the cost of the roads that you pay for in taxes, and that would easily add another $3,000 dollars to your annual cost.

It would, however, make sense to get rid of every car you do not need.
When I was little, every family had one car. We lived.

If you need a car, there are so many used cars flooding the market now that you could probably pick one up for a song.

The goal: Get through the next 4 years without buying a new car.

In 2010, many automakers will begin selling electric cars. Give them a couple of years to work out the bugs before you buy. Batteries are probably going to improve dramatically. An electric car uses half the energy of a car to move you the same distance. Electricity is cheaper than gas. The electric car should cost you the equivalent of about $1 per gallon. But remember that the cost of the gasoline is a small part of cost of owning and operating a car.

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=840241

http://www.oasisdesign.net/transport/cars/cost.htm