Saving Up for a HouseGoing from $0 to $60k in 24 months

I sold my car several years ago and rely mainly on walking and public transportation to get around, but for those of you who still drive a car every day, you can increase your car’s gas mileage up to 37% by making a few simple tweaks to the way you drive. People often refer to this as hypermiling.

According to the Energy Information Administration’s web site, the average price of gasoline in the U.S. is currently $2.75, so you could give yourself up to a $1.02 discount per gallon! Here are some easy ways to improve your car’s fuel efficiency, taken from hypermiling.com, edmunds.com, and this article about traffic waves:

1. Slow down and coast! If you leave a big enough buffer between you and the car in front of you – at least 2 seconds or more – there will be more time to coast before putting on the brakes. Coasting uses less fuel than accelerating. Be a calm, defensive driver and coast as often as you can to conserve fuel.

2. Reduce the amount of time your car is idle. If you speed up to a red light, then jam on the brakes, you’re stuck sitting at the red light longer. Guess how many miles per gallon your car gets when you’re sitting at a red light? The answer is ZERO mpg when you’re stopped at a red light, or any other time you’re stuck in traffic and not moving.

Minimize the time you spend with your car stopped- take your foot off the gas the instant you see a red light up ahead. By coasting to a red light, you converse fuel by not accelerating…and because coasting took you a little longer to get to the red light than accelerating, you’ll spend less time idling at the red light, thus conserving even more fuel!

3. Don’t compete with other drivers in a traffic jam. Being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic is frustrating, but stay calm and leave plenty of space in front of you. When you speed up, then hit the brakes, speed up again, then hit the brakes again, you’re burning more fuel than if you just coasted slowly at the average rate of everyone else. Again, be a calm, defensive driver and save money!

4. Accelerate slowly after a complete stop. You use the most gas when you accelerate. For example, to get to a certain speed in 3 seconds, you’ll use more fuel than you would to reach that same speed in 4 seconds. When you start moving after a red light or stop sign and you’re driving a car with automatic transmission, give an extra second from when you release the brake pedal to when you press the gas pedal. (Don’t do this with manual transmissions or you could cause an accident.)

A car with automatic transmission will start moving slowly on its own with no brake applied. Use this to your advantage as a form of starting out slowly from a stop, even if you only do it for a second. Then, once your car is in motion – however slowly it may be going – you can start accelerating with the gas pedal.

Why this helps: It takes a LOT more energy getting a stationary object to move vs. getting a slow moving object to move faster. Letting an automatic transmission car start moving slowly on its own – even just for a second – means you’ll start accelerating while the car is already in motion.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t work uphill, only on flat roads or downhill.

5. Use cruise control. Your car accelerates more slowly and evenly using its internal computer system than you do when you press the gas pedal. If you see a red light or traffic up ahead, press the “cancel” button to start coasting as soon as you can. Practice using your car’s cruise control effectively to conserve more fuel.

Basically, by driving less aggressively (slow down!) and using physics to your advantage (coast more), you’ll spend 7% to 37% less on gas. Again, why not give yourself a $0.19 to $1.02 discount per gallon? If your car gets 30 miles per gallon and you drive 12,000 miles per year, you could put an extra $400 in your bank account every year.

How’s your driving? Do you have any gas-saving tips of your own?

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