It's a Rental

I am normally a very conservative spender and try to find the best value in everything that I buy and do. I only buy the basic necessities and of these basic necessities, I buy the most basic form. If there were such a thing as ACME brand corn flakes, I would buy that cereal. I would buy the largest box of that cereal and store it in an airtight tub next to my airtight tub of ACME brand sugar.

So when I decided to travel around the South Island for two weeks, I took a risk and decided to rent a car instead of relying on buses everywhere I went. I justified the expense (about $300 USD + another $150 for petrol) with the following reasons:
-I could sleep in the car and avoid paying for hostels
-I could go anywhere, anytime I wanted
-having to catch a scheduled bus or plane makes me anxious
-I only had 11 days to travel
-I would be able to see more of the country

I ended up spending half a day looking for the best deal on a rental car and when I did, I spent another 30 minutes deciding what insurance to get. My first thought was to not get any extra insurance. I eventually decided that the best value would be to get the $8 a day insurance. Unfortunately, when I got to the rental agency, the agent quickly convinced me to spend four more dollars a day on the highest level of insurance. The second I walked out of the rental place I regretted spending that extra money. The big selling point was that they have to replace a lot of windshields and that costs a lot. If there were a number of chips, the whole things would get replace.

The first day driving I was still a little upset about being duped into the extra insurance. The second day, I wound up driving along a road that had "cattle stops." Cattle stops are big metal grates that stop cows from walking down the road in certain spots. After I went through the first cattle stop and realized how rough the ride was, I thought it best to slow down to minimize damage to the car. Then I remembered:
It's a rental.

For the rest of the trip I was driving full speed through cattle stops, I forded streams about 8inches deep, I drove through potholes, down rocky terrain that was "Not Suitable for Passenger Vehicles," I even drove straight into a muddy puddle that could have been a foot deep for all I knew.
By the end of the drive, I hadn't done any severe damage to the car, but the dents and dings and nine chips in the windshield probably would have cost me quite a bit - if I hadn't gotten the extra insurance.