How To Get Free Air For Your Tires

Publishing this post required some mandatory humility on my part. But hopefully you can learn from my mistake so you know how and where to find free air for your car tires – for the rest of your life.

My wife and I have been battling a slow rim leak in one of our car’s tires for the past year. Depending on temperature, this suspect tire will drop below the recommended minimum PSI rating about once a week. Not good – for many reasons. In researching an article I previously wrote about how to check your tire pressure and inflate your tires, I learned that low tire pressure can lead to notably lower fuel efficiency. According to the U.S. Department of Energy,

“Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.3% for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires.”

Under-inflation can also lead to increased wear on a tire, decreasing the tire’s lifespan. And in some cases, it can also lead to a damaged wheel or other vehicle damage.

Knowing the importance of having a properly inflated tire, whenever we noticed that the tire pressure was low, a variation of the following request would take place:

“Hey hun, that freakin’ tire’s air pressure is low again. Would you mind filling it up the next time you drive by that gas station?”

Find Free Air for Tires at Gas Stations

Unfortunately, finding free air for tires is not as easy as it used to be. Within a 5 mile radius of our house, we know of exactly one remaining gas station that still offers free air. Some states require all gas stations to offer free air, but most do not. In states that do not (like Michigan), some gas stations may voluntarily offer free air, but most do not. And paid air compressor use at gas stations can be highway robbery @ $1-2 per fill (under the stress of having to rush before you time out).

If you’re in a pinch, freeairpump.com offers a user-generated map of gas stations that offer free air compressor use. Keep in mind that it is user-generated and some of the locations could no longer offer free air and some stations may have not been added yet.

If you do use a gas station’s air compressor, you should pick up a tire pressure gauge (like this) if your car does not have built-in monitoring with digital readout out on your driver information display. Many gas station air pumps do not have a tire pressure display and you should know the precise tire pressure so you don’t go too high and blow the tire (or too low and damage the tire).

Buy a Portable Air Compressor to Use as a Tire Inflator

Instead of making excuses to drive miles away to find a gas station that offers free air – I’d highly recommend that you buy a portable air compressor to use as a tire inflator instead. A few searches on Amazon led to me finding this very highly rated VIAIR 85P Portable Air Compressor, which you can plug directly in to the auxiliary outlet, for $48. Having a portable air compressor is extremely convenient for use when traveling. In my opinion, this alone makes the product worth more than the price.

A bonus to portable air compressors is that they almost all have a tire pressure gauge that allows you to see the actual tire pressure while you’re filling it. As noted previously, the ones at gas stations often do not.

You May Already Have a Free a Portable Air Compressor

Here’s where the humility in this story comes in. I was perusing Amazon reviews for the best portable air compressor to buy to keep in my trunk, when a thought hit me,

“Wait a minute! Our car didn’t come with a spare tire, so maybe there is some sort of manufacturer-supplied air compressor that I can use as a tire inflator in the trunk.”

I excitedly ran out to the car, popped open the trunk, and removed the floor covering to find a portable air compressor tire inflator. Bingo!

We’ve had this car for 4 years – with dozens of trips to gas stations – and didn’t even realize the entire time that we had a much more convenient solution in our own trunk! Lesson learned: if you have purchased a car that does not have a spare tire, check your trunk. There may be more than just junk in your trunk (*wink*) – you may have a lonely portable air compressor just waiting to be used.

Use a Bike Pump to Fill a Car Tire

Here’s a pro tip for those who don’t mind getting sweaty and have some time on their hands: if you don’t want to buy a portable air compressor and don’t have a gas station nearby that offers free air, you can use a bike pump to fill a car tire! Here’s a highly rated bike pump that you can use on a car tire.

How is this possible? Bike tire tubes have either a Schrader valve or a Presta valve for tire inflation. Car tires in the U.S. all use Schrader valves. Bike pumps usually have a two-hole nozzle to adapt to either type of valve – so they will also work on car tires.

You can keep the bike pump in your trunk and use it on your car or bike when needed. I will warn that this method is not for the faint of heart. It can take dozens (maybe even hundreds) of pumps to move the needle on the pressure gauge a few PSI. The bright side is that it’s a free workout. Exercise and energy savings – can’t beat that, right?

Steps You Must Take Before the Next Financial Crash

You've probably been seeing headlinesabout yet another financial crash on the horizon. It's true, the International Monetary Fund has released grim projections for the immediate future of world finance. Why? Well, it's complicated. Basically, the forces which were put in place to fix the last recession may just have caused another bubble in another sector.

The 2008 Recession

The last bubble and subsequent recession were caused when Wall Street took on huge amounts of cheap debt. This debt, as it was repaid, was meant to pay off many times over. But the reality of the situation was much different. In many cases, the debt was put on the back of private individuals who couldn't handle it, who shouldn't have been offered a loan in the first place. They defaulted en masse and -- among many other factors -- it caused the bubble to pop. Debt is only worth something if it gets paid back, plus interest. In 2008 the whole house of cards collapsed. Massive firms like Lehman Brothers went under and a lot of money just disappeared.

The 'Brittle' 2015 Global Market

Things are different this time around and Wall Street isn't on the hook. In an attempt to stabilize global markets following the last recession, borrowing has been made extremely cheap in developed economies like the United States. Economists thought this would shock the heartbeat of the pre-Crash economy back to life, but the U.S. was never able to wean borrowers off of ultra low rates. Investors of all sizes have been snapping up this cheap debt for several years now, causing many to worry that these are exactly the same conditions that caused the 2008 crash.

There are other global factors which make this scenario different from that of 2008. This time, Wall Street isn't the one holding all of this cheap debt. This time it's spread all around the world, in companies, private investors and world governments. Many of the nations involved are so-called "developing" economies, which have been using cheap borrowing to fund expansion.

What Does This Mean for You?

Feel free to frolic down the personal finance blog rabbit hole to better understand what's happening and why. But for now, let's move our attention from the problem to what you should do if something should hit the fan.

1. All the basic rules of personal finance still apply. Continue eliminating debt, budgeting, saving and investing as normal. Always have an emergency fund in a savings account, enough to cover your basic expenses for 6 months or more. If you are consider yourself low or middle class, you likely won't be hugely vulnerable in the event of a global financial event. Stay calm, carry on.
2. If you're an investor, don't freak out. If you have money in the stock market, this isn't time to lose your cool. If the bottom falls out of the major markets, yes, you will lose money. But the last thing you want to do is sell out of panic when things start going south. All this does is lock in your losses. If anything, double down during a bear market. Best case scenario: The stocks you buy during a recession will increase in value a lot over the next few years. Worst case scenario (unlikely): Civilization as we know it falls apart and your money isn't worth anything anyway.
3. Don't try to beat the markets. Invest when you have money, not according to how the market is doing. Many people lose a lot of money buying up "cheap" stocks, only to have them lose a lot more value the next day. Markets are inherently volatile. Investing regularly, regardless of what is going on, has been proven to work better over decades than only buying when the price seems right.
4. Allocate your investments wisely. One great way to lock in investment values which you can't afford to lose is to put them in stable bond markets. A good rule of thumb is to make your bond allocation percentage the same as your age (e.g., if you are 32 years old, allocate for 68 percent stocks and 32 percent bonds). Assuming a normal lifespan, you'll have time to recover your losses in the stock market, with the assurance that your bond investments are high and dry.
5. Have a nice day. If you've taken care of all of the above, there's little else that you can do. If so, don't let bad news in big finance ruin your day. You may have more complex financial needs than the ones described above, but if you don't, try not to worry so much about the aspects of Finance which don't directly affect you and which are beyond your control. An upcoming financial crash is by no means inevitable, even though it makes better headlines to say that it is.

As global finance continues to become more complex, there will be growing pains. Put yourself in a position to ride out the hard times that will come, and you'll be able to get through rough patches without losing too much sleep (or net worth). Like Warren Buffett said, "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

If international finance projections continue to be hysterical and grim, stick with a plan like the one outlined here.

See Markets React to the Fed in 7 Charts

The initial market reaction to the Federal Reserve was swift, but it was far from violent. U.S. stocks and gold climbed higher. Ten-year Treasury yields and the dollar fell.

The market moves came after Fed officials on Wednesday reduced estimates of how much they expect to raise short-term interest rates in 2016 and beyond.

As traders expected, the central bank held its benchmark rate steady for now. Without committing to a timetable, officials said the next move would depend on “realized and expected economic conditions” and reiterated that they plan to move gradually. And they offered up a slightly more pessimistic view on economic growth.

The stock-market reaction wasn’t especially massive. The S&P 500 sat slightly in the red just before the statement was released, shot into positive territory after it crossed the wire, and then momentarily dipped back into negative territory about 15 minutes later. But it was less than a 1% move from trough to peak.

Then, as Fed Chair Janet Yellen prepared to give a press conference, traders began to send stocks higher again. Here’s a look at the snap reaction across some of the major asset classes as Ms. Yellen speaks. The charts are live and will present an updated picture if reloaded.