How Do You Save Money From Gas?

[Johansen8]

I'm gonna be short and sweet about it: Drive less and slow down.

share your tricks

[gt0163c]

Proper tire inflation.

When first entering a hot car, drive with the windows down for a few minutes to help clear the stale, hot air (I live in Texas, some days I still need the air conditioning in the afternoon). Then, cycle the a/c on and off, keeping it off as long as possible.

Decreasing extra weight in the car (clean out the trunk/back).

Avoid hard accelerations and hard breaking by paying more attention to the flow of traffic.

Walk instead of drive when possible, especially if going to multiple stores in a strip mall shopping center. Park nearest the store which you are most likely to buy big/heavy items.

[jdp]

Walk
Bike
Bus

[AnninOhio]

Our local grocery chain has a loyalty rewards program that can earn you free gas at designated stations. (10 cents off per gallon per every 50$ spent). You can also earn extra ($1 off per gallon) if you bring in a new/transferred prescription to their pharmacy - so a generic drug purchase could benefit you like this:

1 new/transferred generic drug purchase - $4.00 (this store has $4 generics)
1 dollar off per gallon prescription coupon added
At the gas pump, my car takes about 16 gallons - so I get $16 off
...I just made 12 bucks on the deal!

This same chain also sells gift cards to restaurants and a lot of retailers, for which you get 20 cents off per $50 spent. I'm not advocating spending more, but if you are going to buy gift cards anyway, this way you can get free/reduced gas. You can also buy the gift cards for retailers where you know you need to make a purchase - e.g. you know you need to spend $50 at Home Depot, so you buy a gift card at this grocery store and get 20 cents off per gallon in gas (vs. just spending the 50 bucks, and getting nothing extra).

Add this to reducing use by walking, public transport etc. and you could save quite a bit.

[lucille]

I drive with the MPG display active in the dashboard. Knowing how much gas I am wasting by my driving habits is more important than what time it is. I am much more aware of my driving habits when you see that hard acceleration or driving over 70mph on the freeway wastes a ton of gas.

I consolidate errands and run them in a loop. So if I have to go to town I stop at various places in progression across town or in a loop back to the house. I also keep a cooler in the trunk so if I have to buy groceries they don't spoil while I do the other stops.

I have cut my gas consumption in half by doing this.
We also swap vehicles depending on who is doing more driving. The one doing more driving takes the high mpg car.

[purplefdu]

+1 for the gas rewards. I save up frees or trade for things that would be free to bump up my spending. I make a list that our head stock person refers to as my "takeover plan" It has how many and what item, then a column for shelf price and actual cost after coupons so I can round in groups of fifty and watch my actual out of pocket cost. We recently paid 1.67/gal with our savings from a big shopping trip as well as my mom's.

The things we normally try to do is drive the speed limit, proper tire inflation, empty vehicle, planned trips and smooth driving (my husband is a bit worse at this). We also make sure to keep up on oil changes, air/fuel filters and other stuff.

[donnyg16]

Make sure you have the proper amount of air in your tires. Make sure you are up to date with your oil change and use higher quality oil than normal. Drive a little slower to increase your your mileage per gallon

[arkadofbabylon.org]

We drive less in order to save money on fuel. If we can walk to rent a movie or pick up groceries, we do it. As for going to work, I carpool. I take three other people with me everyday that way we can all reduce our fuel consumption. I also don't speed -- going the speed limit helps with my gas mileage and spares me a speeding ticket

[skeet]

Car pooling obviously helps save on gas and car wear. Also, if you have a membership to CostCo or the like they usually have discounted gas that is around 10 cents cheaper a gallon than current prices.

If possible ride the metro as this will decrease cost and help the environment.

[Greg]

Great thread!

Make sure you check the Wise Bread Guide to Saving Money on Gas. It's a free PDF download (when you subscribe to the Wise Bread feed by RSS or email) with 108 tips on saving money on gas. The page below also links to related MPG-boosting articles from Wise Bread and around the web.

http://www.wisebread.com/108-best-fuel-economy-tips

____________________

Scheduling gas buys at Costco is the main way I save money on gas. I used to buy gas whenever and wherever... but now I save it for my Costco grocery shopping day.