Save Gas and Save Lots of MoneyDo you know how to save gas to reduce your fuel costs? It’s more than just getting better gas mileage for your vehicles. It means being more efficient and selective in many respects. You need to know: how to drive most efficiently; when to drive and when to stay put; alternatives to driving; and, how to purchase fuel at least cost. It is important to save money on gas and reduce overall transportation costs. Getting you from one place to another is almost 20% of your cost of living. For most people, that is more than the cost of food. Since we spend a lot in this area, we should be able to identify lots of ways to save as well. Price per gallon of fuel is very influential with respect to your transportation costs, but you have little influence over that. You do have influence over most everything else that contributes to your total transportation costs, so start exercising that influence and you’ll save gas and save money in a meaningful way. Here are 38 ideas about how to save gas. Each idea has a cost and difficulty rating from 1 to 10 where a rating of 1 is the easiest or least costly to do, and a rating of 10 is the most difficult or costly. The ideas are also rated with respect to their anticipated savings where a rating of 1 has minor savings, and a rating of 10 is expected to be among the best ways to save gas. Keep in mind that the amount of fuel you save will depend on the type of car you drive. Getting better gas mileage will also depend on how far “off the mark” you are with respect to driving techniques that maximize work performed and minimize efficiency losses. Lastly, the total amount of money you save will depend on how much you drive. As you review these suggestions, you’ll notice that the ideas with higher potential to save money on gas are generally those with a higher cost or difficulty. Also, most of the ideas with lower potential to save gas also have a lower cost or difficulty rating. This is the way I think it will turn out for the average person. The tips are organized by category. You’ll want to combine many of these money saving tips to make the most out of your transportation dollar. Let’s dive in.
Our focus should be on achieving a lower total cost for transportation. What difference does it make if you have a 15 mpg car if you only drive it 2,000 miles per year and the rest of the time you use alternative transportation? Here is the idea in a nutshell. Add up your total cost of transportation for a year and see if there are ways for you to get the transportation you need for less money. There are different cars, and alternatives to cars. I have heard of a woman in the City of New York who has very low transportation costs. She uses her car for grocery shopping about once a month and an occasional trip within the state to see her family. Other than that, she walks or uses alternative transportation. She knows how to save gas. Her cost of transportation is very low, and she is perfectly happy with that. The importance of focusing on lowering our total transportation costs will become abundantly clear as we approach a time when gas prices are so high that we seriously start to think about other ways to get around. I believe the time to think about other ways to get around is right now. Let me show you how to lower your transportation costs by owning a good used car instead of a fuel efficient new car. I practice what I preach. I practice most of the 38 techniques above, and in two years I have reduced my local annual fuel consumption from about 800 gallons to 150 gallons. That should be evidence enough of how well these techniques can help you save gas. Want more evidence that these techniques work? Take a look at the better gas mileage I am able to squeeze out of my 2001 Saturn SC2 when compared with EPA testing data. As they say, the proof is in the pudding.
If we average out the fuel economy for both sets of data, that works out to 27 mpg for the EPA, and 33 mpg for me. The EPA uses 15,000 miles as an average distance driven per year. So, at $3.41 per gallon of gas (mid 2008 prices), the EPA figures suggest that I should be paying about $1,888 at the pump. Instead I pay $1,550 at the pump. Actually, I pay only $1,322 at my pump because the price of gas at my pump was only $2.91 per gallon for 2008. That’s a savings of over $550 a year. How do I pay 50 cents to one dollar less per gallon of gas? I buy it for less. You can too. It is all part of the 38 ideas to save gas, get better gas mileage, and lower your cost of transportation.
If you are curious about some of the processes involved in using and saving fuel, then let me help you understand the basics of how fuel is consumed in a vehicle. Use it wisely and you’ll save gas and save money. Use it unwisely and you are wasting money. If you understand the basics, then you can better appreciate how to save money on gas. Done with Save Gas, take me back to the Home page.
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