If you can get away with it, plan out your weekly tasks to one day. You’ll save money on gas, as well as wear on your car. With gas prices going up again, you can’t afford not to use this strategy.
How many times do we take the car out for a single errand, only to find ourselves going the same way later in the day or later in the week? This is a waste of time and of gas. If both errands were done at the same time, completing them would take a single trip. This doesn’t seem like much of an impact at first, but if you can cut down the number of trips that you take, you will spend less gas each week, which adds up by the months and by the year.
Take some time to lay out the errands that you need to make. This will help you to plan out your trip to maximize the trip for the best efficiency. Organize the route to prevent as little backtracking as possible. You should start with the outing or errand that is furthest on the route. Conventional wisdom says that a warm engine runs the most efficiently. Your car will warm up on the longest part of your journey, making the subsequent stops burn less fuel. It may also prevent backtracking, in case you see other places along the way that you forgot to add to your route. You can always hit them on the way back.
During your driving day, try to stock up at your most frequent stops. You might try buying two weeks worth of groceries, for example, so you can reduce your shopping to every other week. Fill you tank near the end of your route, so you do’t have to go out of your way or make a special trip out for gas if something unexpected comes up.
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