Money Saving Tips: Cut Your Costs at the Gas Pump

Someday, yes some, wonderful day, I'll get to stop posting on ways to save on gas and energy costs. But, unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that day is going to come about any time soon. In fact, the only place gas prices are headed is up. As such, I'm offering these tips to cut your costs at the gas pump from Money magazine:

• Park your car in the shade whenever possible. Saves on gas evaporation and cooling costs.
• Forget items that add drag, weight or friction to your car -- items such as spoilers, large subwoofers and larger tires.
• Use cruise control on highways, not on hilly terrain.
• Buy a more gas-efficient car the next time.

Not anything earth-shattering, but as I often say, some of the best (and most practical/useful) money saving tips are the old tried-and-true ones.

The biggest one I could probably start using is cruise control. I prefer using the pedal to control the car -- even on very long trips. It feels like I'm more in control of the vehicle plus I think it helps keep me alert (I don't get too relaxed by just sitting back). But I'll try it the next time we make a long trip and see how our gas mileage changes. If it saves a good amount, even I'm willing to give up some control. ;-)

Comments

[dave]

This might not be available to everyone, but there are some grocery stores which sell gas at a discount if you've bought groceries from them in the last month. Kroger is one in my area, and I think Wal-Mart does that as well. Also, I use a cash-back credit card. It's not a great comfort, but it's nice to know that when prices go higher, I'll be racking up more points.

[Cap]

hmm, you know I actually never read the one about putting car in shade before, makes sense, but never thought about it that way.

[jhawsey]

Your driving habits make a huge difference in what gas mileage you get. I track my mpg on a regular basis and I drive a Focus that generally gets right around 30 mpg. Then I read an article about how to drive better to improve your mpg. I put some of the techniques into place and I actually got up to 34 mpg. That is a 13% increase!!! The basic idea was to remove rapid acceleration and deceleration.