How to Save Gas Money – Lower you Fuel Expenses
Struggling with big fuel expenses? Wondering how to how to save gas money? You can save money on gasoline with these outside-the-box ideas and gas saving tips.
Increasing your car’s MPG and maximizing your gas station experience is fine, and can yield pretty good results.
But after you’ve squeezed all the juice (or should I say gasoline?) out of these fuel saving tips, sometimes you need to be more creative and think outside the box in order to make a difference.
Following are some Outside-the-Box Car Saving Tips:
Do You Really Need an S.U.V?The best way to save money on gasoline is to buy a fuel efficient car, one that has high MPG.
Stop keeping up with the Joneses and evaluate your true needs. Does an S.U.V suit them best? Probably not.
How much money can you save by switching to a high MPG car?
As mentioned before, with current fuel prices (2.67 USD/G at time of writing), assuming an annual average of 15,000 miles, the difference between
a car that gets 20 MPG and one that gets 30 MPG sum up to around 670$!
Add to this the money you will be saving on buying it plus the insurance cost, and you can save some big money!
Don’t Buy a New Car!I’m serious. DON’T DO IT!
When you buy a new car you start loosing money from the second you signed above the dotted line at the dealer lot.
On average, cars loose around 20% (or more, some may loose 40%!) of their value in the first year. The second year isn’t much better, with another 15% or so of value loses.
This continues on with 13%
on the tired year, 12% on the forth and so on.
In terms or money – after 4 years you’ve lost almost 50% from your car’s value!
| Car Value | Losses ($) | Losses (%) | |
| Purchase | $20,000 | ||
| 1st Year | $16,000 | $4,000 | 20% |
| 2nd Year | $13,600 | $2,400 | 15% |
| 3rd Year | $11,832 | $1,768 | 13% |
| 4th Year | $10,412 | $1,420 | 12% |
So what should you do? You have two options:
- Keep your old car for a few more years
- Buy a used car (3-4 years old)
Modern cars are still in perfect shape at their 3rd or 4th year, and most still come with warranty.
There are many people who would buy only new cars. That’s fine, buy you have to understand that buying a new car is an emotional decision. Financially speaking it is a very pricy and wrong decision.
If you are trying to save money – buy used! Period.
Don’t Lease it!Whatever the dealer is trying to say, no matter how it is presented – leasing a car is always the worst option (financially).
As this is a very important subject I will soon write a separate page on the subject.
Walk it!How to save gas money? By not driving…
If where you’re going to is not too far, try walking instead of driving. Burn fat instead of gas!
Cycle it!How to save gas money? Same as the previous tip only allows greater distances.
Should I mention the heath benefits? Not only you will become healthier – you will end up saving fortune on health bills in the future.
Metro it!How to save gas money? Consider switching to public transport.
You can leave the car at home or at the public transport station, save money on gas and maintenance, and sometime even on travel time.
Not to mention that the ride time can now be used to other purposes, be it reading, napping or working.
Car-Pool it!How to save gas money? Try riding to work with other people. Huge saving on both fuel and car maintenance.
Don’t know anybody near you? There are numerous free services offering help in finding ride mates such as eRideshare.
Club it!Living in or around a city, most people use public transportation for most of the time. However, time arises when you need a car.
Instead of owning or renting one consider joining local car clubs who gets you pay-as-you-go access to cars 24/7, 365 days a year.
The best Car Clubs in USA are:
The Best Car Clubs in the UK are:
If you ask yourself how to save gas money with the car that I already own, click here for some maintenance and general advice tips that will get you better MPG and Save you Money on your Car.