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It seems like everything has become more expensive lately, and that includes the cost of owning and operating a new vehicle here in Minnesota, which just hit an all-time high.

The crew over at the American Automobile Association (better known as AAA) has been keeping tabs on the cost of owning a vehicle for a while now with their annual Your Drivings Costs report. Unless you're paying cash for your new ride, there's usually a car loan payment you have to make each month. But there are other factors in the overall cost of owning and operating a vehicle.

The biggest factor is, of course, the cost of fuel. And, as we're all painfully aware, the cost of gasoline has been through the roof so far in 2022, setting an all-time high back in June. But to come up with the total cost of operating a new vehicle in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, AAA also looked at other factors including maintenance/repair/tire costs, insurance, license/registration/taxes, depreciation, and finance charges.

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And according to the AAA 2022 Your Driving Costs report, the total cost of owning and operating a vehicle in Minnesota in 2022 just hit $10,728, or $894 per month. That’s a whopping 11% increase from 2021 when the average yearly cost was $9,666 or $805.50 per month. And, it's the first time the total cost has topped $10,000.

That $10,728 annual cost here in the North Star State puts us slightly ahead (1%) of the 2022 national average, which AAA noted was $10,850.32. However, that annual cost is much less if you live behind the Cheddar Curtain over in my home state of Wisconsin. AAA noted the cost there is 7% less than the national average for 2022, coming in at 'just' $10,012 in 2022. And it's 4% less down in Iowa, with the 2022 average cost estimated to be $10,313.88.

If you're looking at buying a new vehicle in 2022, AAA has a handy cost calculator that can help estimate just HOW much you'll be paying to own and drive that new ride. If gas prices continue to fall, that figure will also fall-- hopefully below that $10,000 mark. Remember when gas was cheap? Like when you first started driving? Keep scrolling to see how cheap it really was when you got your driver's license!

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LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

 

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