Save on Gas

We usually realize we’ve spent a bit on gas when we go for a long drive, but we tend to be less conscious of how all the little trips add up. For example, we were recently discussing the local YMCA. For a great price it has a gym and a pool, and they’ll even watch the kids in the day care while you exercise. However, the Y is 12 miles from our home. That means a round trip of 24 miles, which is roughly a gallon of gas for our cars. With the current price of gas, that means one trip to the gym is $3.50 in gas. If you go three times a week (okay, that’s optimistic for me but we’ll assume you’re better), that’s $10.50/week and nearly $50/month. When you add that to the cost of the gym membership, it doesn’t seem like nearly as good a deal. That doesn’t mean we will drop our membership, but knowing the true cost of the gym helps evaluate potential alternatives that might cost more in membership fees but less in mileage.

This is also another reason to follow Keegan’s advice about planning out trips to the grocery store. If you can go shopping just once a week (or even once every two weeks) and avoid all those little trips to pick up stuff you forgot, you’ll not only save shopping time and money, you’ll also save a lot in gas. It all adds up...