I've got gas...

Come on. You think I'd be THAT revealing to the world?! :-p

Actually, I should've titled this entry - MPG. Now that I've made sure that I've said I got a new car, I can talk about one of the reasons. Not the only reason, and actually not the biggest reason, but an important one nonetheless -- fuel economy.

It's important for a number of reasons -- personal cost, environmental cost, national independence, etc. Would I have liked to buy a car that gets 100 MPG? You betcha. I would have settled for 50 MOG if I could afford it right now. But, alas, I couldn't. I know that in the long run, we would've all been better if I could, but a small step is better than no step. I'm doing a part to help, even if it's not as big of a part as I'd like.

I am very aware of the fuel economy of my new car. In fact, the car helps me stay that way. It has an automatic average MPG display. It's not the real-time display I would like, but it's certainly helpful (and pretty accurate based on my calculations). It's had an impact on the way I drive already, too. My car and I play a little game called "How high can I get the MPG readout..."

I pay attention to things like starting off too quickly from a stop. I coast to stops when feasible so that I don't have to stop in the first place. I use cruise control as often as I can, knowing that automatic means are more efficient than I at keeping an even speed. I gain some ground on the way to work, but lose most of it on the way home due to construction. I still get 50% better mileage than I did in my van, but I want to do better.

It's funny though. Even as we all pinch every penny we can just to survive nowadays, I bet you know exactly how much you spent per gallon of gas last fill up. And I bet you drive sometimes way out of your way just to save a couple of pennies per gallon. And I don't blame you. But I realized a while ago that to save 3 cents per gallon on a 20 gallon fill up, only saved me sixty cents. Sixty cents is sixty cents, don't get me wrong, but there's a lot more money to be saved (and many other benefits) by conserving the gas in the first place. Even a single mile per gallon increase in fuel economy will save you dollars per fill up instead of pennies. That's worth changing a few habits, I think. Hypermilers have a lot of other useful ways to get more per gallon from your car as well.

And, on the subject of saving money, personal finance blog Wisebread wrote an article recently comparing the cost of a gallon of gas to a gallon of other common consumer products. Might want to start thinking about cutting back on some of those items as well after seeing their list.