Well I'm about as furious as I can be, "pissed" would be the best way to describe it. I know I had all my receipts from gas for the month saved but during my last budget update around April 25th, I must have thrown one of them away. So unfortunately I can't give all my true results for the month. AAAAARRRRRGGGG!!!! (hitting the keyboard really hard right now!) I guess I'll just have to try and figure it out. Here's what I do have in writing from the month:
| Date | Distance: | Gallons: | MPG: |
| 04/12/11 | ARG! | ARG! | 0 |
| 04/21/11 | 354.9 | 11.93 | 29.75 |
| 04/26/11 | 354.6 | 11.38 | 31.16 |
| 05/01/11 | 145.4 | 4.89 | 29.7 |
| Totals: | 854.9 | 28.197 | 30.3 |
So for the month my average was 30.3 if you don't count the first week. I do recall after getting that receipt that my average for the first 11 days was in the 31's. So lets just figure out what my driving would have looked like had I done about 350 miles on my first tank averaging 31 MPG.
| Date: | Distance: | Gallons: | MPG: |
| 04/12/11 | 350 | 11.29 | 31 |
| 04/21/11 | 354.9 | 11.93 | 29.75 |
| 04/26/11 | 354.6 | 11.38 | 31.16 |
| 05/01/11 | 145.4 | 4.89 | 29.7 |
| Totals: | 1204.9 | 39.49 | 30.5 |
That 30.5 is a 20% increase in fuel efficiency. Now to see how much I saved in the month by averaging 30.5 MPG.
I bought 39.49 gallons and averaged paying $3.80 per gallon making the amount I paid in the month for gas $150.06. Now in the last week of March I had averaged 25.45 MPG on my car so if that had continued in April I would have had to get 47.34 gallons of gas instead of 39.49. That means I saved 7.85 gallons for a total of $29.84.
Now that April is over, I've found myself still using the tactics from over the last month. I haven't been hitting the accelerator as much, speeding off the line at lights, or driving as aggressively. So I guess the month was a success. $30 in itself is certainly not motivation enough to drive frugally, but I feel like all the benefits together is good enough for me. Not to mention I think my car is feeling less stressed by not using the engine as much and that's a better thing as well.
I can't imagine getting 31MPG for the rest of the life of the car, but I do like saving money so I'll do my best to keep it up.
1 comments:
Nice! I'm glad you saw such a difference in your efficiency. Maybe because I'm cheap, $1/day sounds pretty significant too. (You can have a free bean burrito every day!) What do you perceive to be the costs of driving efficiently? Is it just less fun, or do you notice that you're getting places in significantly more time? (Incidentally, did you track your commute times?)
By: Lynn Garcowski on May 6, 2011 at 12:51 PM
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