Continuing the article Saving On Gas With Prices On the Rise (part two), I’d like to focus on some more fine points to save us all money in the gas department.
Gas prices are literally jumping everywhere, almost daily. It’s impossible to keep up and pretty soon we might all be destined to never leave our homes (slightly kidding!). Hopefully that won’t happen, but for now, it’s a reality we need to take into consideration. The following are the rest of the great tips I have for saving money on gas!
If you have children who ride the bus to school in the fall, make sure they are ready on time in the morning so they don’t miss their free ride!
If your children forget their homework or lunch at home and the school is quite a drive… well, I’ll leave that one up to you. But if you do decide to run it up to school, consider running additional errands while you’re out!
Movie tickets are already pretty high, but now we’ve got to consider the added cost of traveling there and back. Consider renting video’s or even buying them from Blockbuster and Hollywood video! Hollywood Video in my area has these awesome deals where you can get 3 DVD’s for $25 (and they are almost ALL new releases), and then the older ones are usually 5 for $20 – you can’t beat that! Watch for those specials, and you can save that way!
If your family has two or more cars you might want to consider sizing down, as long as the extra trips won’t end up costing you even more than maintaining the additional cars.
If you’re a double-income working couple and are commuting to work in two separate cars, have the one who’s job is the furthest away drive whichever car gets better gas mileage.
If you’re not sure what your car’s gas mileage is you can calculate that by writing down the odometer reading when you fill up your tank. Or just reset the trip meter to zero. The next time you get gas, make a note of the mileage and how many gallons it takes to fill the tank back up. Take the difference in mileage (which is how many miles you drove on the trip meter), and divide it by how many gallons of gas it takes to fill up. For example, if you drove 100 miles and it takes 5 gallons of gas to fill your tank back up, you’re getting 20 mpg. My Ford Explorer (’97) has a digital read-out for me of how many gallons I got every time I fill up. Remember to check it and you can figure out how to cut costs that way too! (plus you can keep track of how good you’re doing!)
Your gas mileage may also vary just a bit with each fill up depending on traffic and how you’re driving, but you’ll have a good idea of what your average is by continuing to keep track of your mileage over several weeks or months (a small notebook would be handy). Once you have at least several weeks of figures to use, add the mpg averages together and divide them by how many there are. For example, if you’ve got averages of 20, 21, 19, 22, and 25, your total would be 107 and you would divide that figure by 5, bringing your average to 21.4 mpg.
If your car gets less than 20 mpg you might consider trading it in for one that’s more efficient. SUVs may be great cars, and I truly love mine, but right now it isn’t very cost effective. I recently gave it to a friend and am now driving a mini-van. It’s not much better but it is a little bit more cost friendly.
You might also want to consider a hybrid car if you can afford it. Upon research I found that not only do they get 77mpg (yep that’s NOT a typo!) they are relatively easy to use and own!
Plus in 2004 they had a tax discount for hybrid car owners:
“Under the Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004, the deduction amount is limited to $2,000 for cars first put into use in 2004 and 2005. The deduction will be limited to $500 for vehicles placed in service in 2006, and no deduction will be allowed after that year…”
Some last tips to get us saving those gas costs where we can.
Keep your car in good working condition, this includes tire pressure, oil and air filters, and even the engine. Getting a tune up might also help, check your owner’s manual for recommended service dates.
When driving on the highway use your cruise control if you have it. This will also help you avoid those nasty traffic tickets that would eat up all of your hard earned gas savings!
If you’re still using premium gas instead of regular unleaded check your owner’s manual to make sure this is necessary. Most vehicles are made to operate just fine on regular!
Shop online whenever you can to avoid extra trips all together! Don’t buy anything unless you really need it though, every dollar you save can help pay for the rising costs of gas, food and housing.
I’ve always recommend local sight seeing (traveling by car) as a frugal family fun outing–it’s one of our favorite things to do–but with the price of gas now being double what it used to be, you may just need to choose areas that are closer to home. Considering the even higher costs of hotels and airfares, it’s still a frugal way to have fun! You might also consider just spending time together as a family, having a game night instead!
Do you have any tips to help us save on our gas prices? Please share them with us!
Related Articles:
Saving On Gas With Prices On the Rise (part one)
Saving On Gas With Prices On the Rise (part two)