For those of you with cars, you may have noticed how much more it's costing to fill up your tanks with gasoline. An understatement, for sure. I read a news article a few weeks ago that we Americans are finally turning to smaller, more common-sense approach to transportation by buying more fuel-efficient cars. Not me, understand, because having a car payment would disrupt our financial balance (already teetering on some sort of tenuous ledge) more than filling up our two paid-off trucks.
For people like me, or those who just don't want to give up their gigantic cars, there is hope. Here's a few great ways to save on gasoline:
1. Swim wherever you have to go. Or walk if that's somehow easier.
2. For convertible drivers, shaved heads provide less wind resistance (equaling more gas mileage).
3. Buy a bicycle and a large orange helmet so people in their Suburbans won't hit you. On a serious note: a number of road cyclists are killed each year when the mirrors of larger vehicles strike them. Please, share the road with bicyclists and give them room if your vehicle is a mile wide. They pay taxes, too, and have a right to ride there. And if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Pedaling is a fun way to get into better shape. I prefer less-traveled roads myself.
4. Ride the bus, take the train, how can it be said more plain? At least try a carpool, don't be insane!
5. Work from home. Or live closer to your office.
6. Lose your car keys. Or freeze them in a large block of ice to ensure that you'll REALLY want to go somewhere before you actually go.
7. Don't act as though each green light is the beginning of the Indy 500. Easy does it on the accelerator, Ye Dukes of Hazardous Driving.
8. Combine your trips and errands. Lucky me, I pass by a Home Depot and a Lowe's on my way to work each day, just in case I need homework supplies. Unlucky for me, I pass by several grocery stores and the post office as well.
9. To my neighbors especially: Good grief! We live in Texas. That means it's almost 80 degrees in the mornings. Why are you starting your cars and letting the engines idle for half an hour? Warming them up, are you? Idiots! Besides, most cars today do not "warm up" well in idle, but rather during driving at speeds lower than 35 mph.
10. Drill a hole in your car's roof and attach a large mast. Rig a sail and let windpower be your guide. What? No wind where you are? That's OK: the breeze created by speeding drivers should help propel you.
It only makes me feel worse to hear that gas is $3 a gallon or more in parts of the country. Really, it doesn't make it easier for me to fork over $2 per gallon. I haven't heard much political clamor over the federal gas reserves lately. Because we are at war, tapping those reserves just to give the general population some financial relief may not be an option. But lordy, I wish something will happen soon. What a bad time for me to live 10 miles from my office, driving a Dodge Ram pickup!
Good suggestions.....hope gas goes down soon or I'll be seriously considering buying an orange helmet.... :)
Gas is outrageous here too.
And I just read that the city (Vancouver) is thinking of fining people for vehicles that idle too long.
Good times.
$2.19 in Bend, OR ..
try driving 100 miles round trip to work each day! $40 a week in GAS!
I like your list, but I don't care what you say - I'm not shaving my head!!
Cas
Sigh. Okay - time machine visit - whrrrr, tapockota, schwzzzzz. I used to drive a blue Fiat Spider convertible. Cost me $7.00 to fill the tank. (course it only held about 10 gallons). I could drive all week on a tank, unless I cruised the Bowie on a Saturday night. Warm nights, top down, and Chambers Brothers on the radio, and cheap gas. Had to be. I only made *gasp* about $350.00 A MONTH as an instructional aide for the FWISD. $180.00 of that was car pay't (I paid it off in a year). And, if I filled up at Diamond Shamrock, I got cool glasses for my "hope chest". Anyone remember those? No, it wasn't a savings account for plastic surgery. Name that year... *grin*
Yeah, that's one of the things I love about living in Manhattan. It's actually easier NOT to have a car, and to rely on public transportation.
1967?
I like the sail idea! That would be pretty damn funny!
Have agood one!
Dew
$2.17/gal Mesa, AZ
Pathfinder 15-18 mpg
Dakota 4x4, V-8 12-14 mpg
Wrangler 14-17 mpg
They're paid off and they're mine but a Honda Civic is looking awful good right about now.
Ugh. They say Houston has some of the cheapest gas prices. But $1.89 still hurts.
It's climbing higher here in DC/NOVA - some pumps are almost at $3. And now the cabs are charging $1 gas surcharge extra to the fare.
Things do not look good. And they say it's only going to get more expensive.
Two things about that: dish network first, even though it was insurance a first effort, and we were directv two whiteys who admittedly loan didn't know as much about loan rap (the history, methodology, mortgage the deliverance, even) as direct tv about a lot of other music credit card - we practiced several flows satellite tv
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