Oct 21st, 2008
The 5% Plan: Making a Comeback
Gas prices have eased, but reducing fuel use needs to be a priority for me no matter what. It’s a substantial part of my budget, for sure; in a typical month, approximately 8% of my take home pay is spent on gasoline. When something is that large a part of your budget, it’s really worth taking a look to see if there’s any way to reduce that expense.
Given that, the 5% Plan–my plan to reduce my gas consumption by 5% a week–is making a comeback.
I have been on an unusual schedule and task pattern the last few weeks, so my figures wouldn’t be all that useful, but right now things are starting to (but haven’t fully) settle down, hopefully meaning any kind of data I collect will be more representative of my typical use.
To review, my goal has been to use 5% less gas per week than my basline–in other words, to use 9.98 gallons of gas (or less!) per week, which I estimate at 247.7 miles of driving. One of the weapons I now have in this battle is the GPS which I didn’t have when I started all of this. With that on the windshield of my Tacoma, let’s see how I did this week:
My total miles driven this week (ending on Saturday, October 18, 2008) were 261.4. I’m estimating my gas use at 10.89 gallons, which points me to 24.0 miles per gallon.
Two trips I made that were outside my usual this week: once to the dentist (about an additional 14 miles), and once to help with an interview at my part time job (about 25 additional miles). While I like to think of these as “extra”, the truth is there’s almost always “extra” commuting in life. Next week, for instance, I’ll be off on Friday but attending Podcamp Hawaii rather than my job (which has a shorter commute). Still, all of this data is valuable; let’s see how I do next week!
