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This is a guest post from Bobbi of Bobbis Bargains.
Unless you live in New York City and use only mass transit, the fastest growing expense you may have is your weekly gasoline bill. I used to pay for my gas out of my pocket money. Now, I couldn’t possibly pay for a tank of gas with all the cash in my wallet. Fuel is a major expense that must be a part of any successful budget.
Knowing this, how can you best stretch your gasoline dollars?
There are lots of articles, videos, and websites that are geared to tell you how to get the most of every ounce of gasoline you put in the tank. These experts tell you to:
- remove extra weight from your car
- avoid unnecessary idling
- eliminate roof racks
- properly inflate your tires
If you like to live a very dangerous lifestyle, you can learn the fine art of hypermiling. Hypermiling is defined as the act of driving using techniques that maximize fuel economy. Extreme hypermiling enthusiasts say they can get very high MPG by employing techniques such as turning off the engine while coasting down slopes, taking routes that avoid stop lights and drafting close behind a big rig to remove wind resistance.
It is possible that all of the above will work. You’d have to check them out for yourself. Some of them are too scary for me to even contemplate.
I don’t know enough about the mechanics of how a car works to say what will help your gas mileage. However, what I DO know is that you WILL definitely drive less miles and therefore USE less gas if you do the following simple steps.
1. Always plan your next day before you go to sleep. Take a few minutes of quiet time before you turn in for the night to go over what needs to be done tomorrow. Map out your stops so that you have to travel the least amount of miles. Decide if an errand can wait until you have another errand in the same vicinity.
2. Make sure you keep a constant shopping list in your purse, pocket or cell phone. This way, if you find yourself in a store, you can pick up everything you need at one time. This will also help avoid impulse buying of items that are NOT on your list.
With just a bit of self-discipline you can spend less time in your car and more time doing the activities you really love.
Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price.
I am pretty good with most of these things, but I do carry extra weight around in my car. My golf clubs are always in the trunk just in case….
I don’t turn off my engine, but I do put the car in neutral and coast. I have a round trip commute of 20 miles each day and manage to coast in neutral about 4+ miles a day. It has boosted my mpg that I save a gallon per tankful.
some gas stations give discounts when you pay for cash, and some credit card companies give you a discount (or points) for using your credit card- an example… as military we went to an af base and paid 2.86 per gallon yesterday, used our star card and got an addition 10 cents off each gallon. right down the street off post, gas was 3.06 a gallon. there are several gas price finder websites out there as well. where you can put in your location, and it pops up nearby gas prices and locations 🙂
heres a finder for the LA area http://www.losangelesgasprices.com/
There are some nice tips here: http://www.fuelly.com/tips/
Conversly, there are also extremely safe driving habits that can save gas like when Carter dropped the speed limit to 55 mph to save gas. Slow driving, slow acceleration, and slowing early before stopping all saves gas and signifigantly reduce braking distance and lethality in the event of a slow-speed accident. Slow driving also reduces the stress on the car, prolonging its life and reduces maintainance costs.
I want to defend hypermiling. True, there are very dangerious methods of driving in order to save money, and there are also obscenely-safe methods of driving that aren’t as eye-openingly sensational as drafting behind big trucks. There are people like me who want to save money by choosing to drive so safely we could be poster-children for the DMV and so I don’t want the public to think that we who hypermile only endanger the safety of other drivers on the road to save ourselves money. There are also extreme drivers like myself who select hypermiling driving methods that only increase safety for other drivers on the road, not only because we care for other people but because super-safe hypermiling also passivly saves lots of money by reducing the risk of expensive car accidents and reducing my car insurance rates.
Putting attention on your tires is another way to save gas.
Your tire pressure is a RANGE, not one set pressure, and they can safely be filled to 80% of the top of that range.
This will give you car less rolling resistance, and hence, better mileage — along with a little bit stiffer ride.