Friday, June 27, 2008

How to Save Gas Money at Going to Work


I mentioned recently that I blew my gas budget this month. Then I read an article on Passive Family Income's blog about how gas prices affected him. One thing leaped out at me - taking a different route to work.

So, I work approximately 6 miles from work - how much can I really shave off? Well, quite a bit it seems. I've been tracking it, by changing my driving patterns a bit I can easily shave off a half of mile. Then I tracked it from the house I am moving into this weekend - another half mile off. In other words, by simply taking a different route each day I can save a mile each way - two miles total.

Ok, it doesn't seem like much, but there are other advantages:

For one thing, I find myself much more engaged while driving. Probably because of the newness of the route (and this may change in time) but I find myself looking around at nature, people's landscaping, beautiful buildings - instead of driving with my mind stressed out and thinking about how I'm going to scrape up a few more dollars.

Secondly, this route is a slower pace. I am finding I am enjoying the relaxing drive, rather than the speed of the expressways, and while the route may take a little longer, I am out of major traffic which is nice.

I am not sure if my little 2 miles a day saved will help a lot - but hey, out of pennies....



Photo by snarl.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mention Dawn. I agree that driving the back roads to work allows you to see more of the "country". It seems that everyone on the highway is in a rat race to get some where.

BTW - I am not sure if I could drive that road to work in the picture!

Bouncing Back said...

I blow my gas budget on personal travel and not on work travel. I have to not just jump in the car and drive someplace for the heck of it. I drive about 10 miles to work each way and there is no way to cut back on the milage.

Dawn said...

I was surprised that I could cut down on my mileage. I thought I was going the best route. It still is the quickest (and I used it this morning when I realized I was running late!)