Lazy Man and Money

35+ Tips to Save Money on Gas

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Save Money on Gas

Everyone is talking about gas prices. People in my Nextdoor app are blaming it on pipelines and US political decisions. I want to explain that gas prices are high all over the world. No country has a magic pipeline that suddenly makes the cost of a barrel of oil to go from $110 to $55. Oil companies in the US produce oil as they see fit… they don’t ask political leaders for permission.

Today, I’ve got an article from 2008. That was a long time ago. Gas prices were through the roof. Oil reached around $180 a barrel. The spike that high was quick, but oil (and gas) prices still stayed above $120 a barrel for months.

A friend of mine cheered on the high oil prices. His theory was that it would be the push necessary for everyone to go to green alternatives. Instead, we just went to fracking to get more oil easier. There’s nothing to cheer about now with high oil prices. It does seem that some countries (especially in Europe) are learning their lesson about depending on foreign oil and switching to green alternatives. I’m hoping that United States makes a greater push for green alternatives.

Those greener alternatives are coming. When I wrote this article, I would be 7 years away from buying solar panels. Now I’ve had them for 7 years. Our next car will be an electric one. Until then, we still are looking at ways to save money on gas:

    Be a More Efficient Driver

  1. Brakes are your enemy. When you step on them, you have spent gas to go nowhere. Think ahead to limit the amount of brakes that you need to use. Trust me, it becomes a habit very quickly and you no longer have to think.
  2. Coast to red lights. Why use gas when you are going to have to stop?
  3. Coast down hills. I see a lot of people gunning it just to have to brake when they reach person in front of them.
  4. Coast to green lights far ahead of you. If it has been green for a LONG time, you might not make that light by the time you get there. That will force you to brake (see #1).
  5. Don’t tailgate… …In fact do the opposite. Leave plenty of room between you and the person in front of you. If the person needs to slow down a little, you can coast to catch up a little instead of using your brakes.
  6. Take three rights instead of a left. UPS drivers do this in metro areas like NYC and found that they save fuel that would have been spent idling. Only look to do this at those really difficult left turns.
  7. Use Cruise Control. A constant speed is the most fuel efficient.
  8. Drive between 40-60 miles per hour. If you have a lighter car, you can aim for the 60 MPH number. If you have a heavier car, you’ll want to go 40 MPH.
  9. Avoid Traffic. Don’t drive during times of high traffic if you can avoid it.
  10. Use a GPS tracker. Time spent lost is gas wasted.
  11. Avoid air conditioning (if you stand it). Some tests seem to show that it’s not a big factor, so if it really impacts your comfort level, you might want to consider using air conditioning.

    12. Make Your Car More Efficient

  12. Don’t carry extra weight in your trunk. I do like to have some emergency supplies in the my trunk, but I won’t leave a bunch of weight in there if I’m not going to use it.
  13. Convert your car to run on vegetable oil. Then filter your own oil from the stuff that restaurants don’t use.
  14. Remove any obvious wind resistance. This includes any bike racks, antenna ornaments, etc. Some say that rolling the windows down creates drag and others say it’s not a significant factor.
  15. Get low rolling resistance tires. These are tires designed to minimize the wasted energy due to the normal friction with the road.
  16. Check your air filter. The Balance says it reduces gasoline mileage up to 10%.
  17. Check the tire pressure Air pressure matters. Follow your manual and you’ll get more miles for every gallon. You can get a highly-rated tire pressure gauge from Amazon for less than $25.
  18. Use a fuel injector cleaner. You can pick this up an any car part store. Add to a tank full of gas or as instructed.

    19. Get the Best Price on Gas

  19. Get a credit card with gas rewards. The Chase Perfect Card with give you 6% cash back on your gas purchases for the first 90 days, then 3% after that. That’s like getting a 12 cents a gallon discount.
  20. Consider not using a credit card. This goes against the above idea. There are gas stations near me that give discounts if you pay with cash or debit cards. Find what works for you.
  21. Use the web to find the cheapest station near you. I like to use GasBuddy myself.
  22. Don’t drive out of your way for the best price. It doesn’t make sense to spend a gallon of gas driving out of your way to save a couple of pennies. You’d have to have a huge tank and a very fuel efficient car to make it work.
  23. Find cheap gas in unusual places. When I lived in Boston, the cheapest gas was from a local grocery store chain. My wife, who lived a little further out west, found that the warehouse club she belonged to had better prices most of the time.
  24. Don’t buy premium grade… unless your car requires it.

    25. Pick the Right Car

  25. Consider a different car. Do you drive great distances in an car that gets poor gas mileage? If so, you might save more money selling your current car and buying a different one. It’s not a common situation, but one worth checking out.
  26. Buy a Hybrid or Electric Car. One of the great things about updating an article from 2008 is that electric cars weren’t readily available. If you buy a hybrid cars, take note – not all amazing gas mileage.
  27. Buy a Small Car. Smaller cars weigh less. It’s simple physics that moving a bigger object requires more power. Small cars also typically come with engines that have four cylinders which often get better gas mileage.
  28. Buy a Motorcycle. Though I consider them quite dangerous, it is a way to save on gas. As a bonus you may get to ride in many high occupancy vehicle lanes
  29. Don’t buy a car that requires premium grade gas.

    30. Don’t Drive as Much

  30. Use a bike or walk. It’s also good exercise, so you kill two birds with one stone.
  31. Park far away. This is typically a health tip, but I see too many spending their gas going up and down the lanes looking for the best possible parking spot.
  32. Reduce your commute by moving closer to your job. My Money Blog did a great example on commuting showing the math vs. living in higher cost cities. Since he did it in March, his cost estimate for gas is conservative.

    33. Get Gas at the Right Time

  33. Follow the price of crude oil. I like to look at CNBC every now and again. If it rises today, there’s a good chance gas prices will go up in 3-4 days. If it drops, it might be wise to wait for that to filter to your local gas station.
  34. Explore buy gas on Wednesdays. I’ve read that statistically gas is cheaper on Wednesdays. That’s helpful, but others say that there are so many other factors to consider that it’s worthwhile. Perhaps you might want to futher investigate yourself or just do it if it’s convenient.
  35. Buy gas a few days before a holiday. Have you ever tried to get gas on Memorial or Labor Day weekends? It seems like gas station always raise rates, knowing that you are going to pay it.

Bonus Myth

  1. Fill up when it’s cool. People think that cooler gas is denser, but some studies show that the temperature coming out of the tank is the same.

Did I miss any gas-saving tips? Let me know in the comments.

Frugal or Cheap: Using True Orange at a Restaurant?

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We know there’s fine line between being frugal and being cheap. At this website, and many other other money-conscious websites, being frugal is something to be celebrated. There’s nothing wrong with trying to stretch a dollar. However, some times people take it too far, to the point of being cheap. That’s typically not something that is celebrated, save for a few people on TLC’s Extreme Cheapskates show.

Today, I’ve got something that I feel walks that fine line between frugal and cheap. I may have mentioned it a couple of times (especially in a SodaStream article), but I’m a big fan of True Orange. It’s a product that I don’t think a lot of people know about. Essentially it’s crystallized orange in a sugar packet-sized foil wrap. Add it to water (or carbonated water via a SodaStream) and you’ve got a lightly orange-flavored calorie-free drink. You avoid all the artificial sweeteners found in soda and the sugar in lemonade or juice. Nit-pickers may point out that soy (a controversial ingredient) and cane juice appear in the ingredients, but I believe it to be in too small a quantity to be significant. The same company makes True Lemon and True Lime, but their Orange is my favorite.

A couple of weeks ago, I got the idea that I could save myself a couple of dollars at restaurants by ordering water and add a packet of True Orange. The idea actually came to more for the health reasons mentioned above than the money saving reasons. I decided to put a packet in my thin wallet for future use. Last week, we were at the Olive Garden for lunch and it occurred to me this would be a good time to put my money saving plan into effect.

I had told my wife before and made sure that she wouldn’t be too embarrassed by my experiment. Her opinion was that you shouldn’t do in front of the waitress or with important company. Of course, I wouldn’t do that. I got to wondering whether it was “wrong” in the first place. I remember getting the following comment in my article about saving money at restaurants:

Drink water is fine. Request lemon is fine. But do NOT make pauper’s lemonade in a restaurant.
1. It is tacky
2. Water with lemon is a cost to the restaurant and a courtesy to the customer, don’t abuse it.
3. Your waiter will see you as a cheap-ass and presume you’ll also be skimping on the gratuity. Your service will be lousy.
4. Your waiter counts on you paying for drinks to up the bill as most people tip based on a percentage of the bill. It is the same amount of work for them to get your makings for lemonade, but they see no bump to the bill (and tip).

So: Drink water, even with lemon. Don’t make your own lemonade as it is rude, tacky and cheap. Don’t cheap out on the gratuity, unless you never plan to visit that restaurant again.

I don’t know if this is tacky or not. However, at least it is not a cost to the restaurant (other than water, which would be like charging to use the restroom). If the waiter doesn’t see me put a packet of True Orange in (my wife didn’t see it even when I forewarned her), he/she can’t see me as cheap and presume a lower tip. I think the commenter is wrong that the waiter should count on people to pay for drinks to up the bill. It’s probably fair the waiter to be disappointed in having a small bill table, but I don’t feel obligated to give the restaurant more money just so that they can expect a higher tip.

The other thing that I thought might be wrong is bringing in “outside food” to a restaurant. That’s tacky, right? But does a packet of calorie-free True Orange count as outside food? It’s not much different than a free lemon wedge right (except that it packs more flavor)? No restaurant, that I’ve been to, has giving me the option to purchase True Orange. It’s not like I’m taking away the sale of a product. I haven’t been to a restaurant that offers a similar calorie-free, no artificial sweetener alternative that I can buy (actually maybe unsweetened ice tea counts? I’m not a big ice tea fan).

At 5 cents a packet, True Orange can save some money. If you go to a restaurant once a week, you can spend anywhere between $100 and $150 in soda. The same amount of True Orange comes out to around $2.60. Is it the world’s best money saving tip? Nope. However if I do something that is healthier and keep $100 in my pocket, that’s a good thing, right?

So what’s your call? Does using True Orange in water in lieu of ordering a drink count as cheap or just great frugal thinking?

Easy Things You Can Do to Save You Money

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[Editor’s Note: The following is guest post from Sara Masterson. Sara is a tech-fanatic and a freelance writer for TechBreach.net. Sarah likes spending time on Pinterest and learning about new technologies and money saving deals. She also enjoys reading a good book or watching an interesting documentary. I thought these were some good reminders on how to save money in a tough economy. For more tips see my save money page, which looks a bit like Pinterest (while on the topic).]

In today’s economy many people are trying to save money in any way that they can. There have been many stories about extreme couponing to where the store end up owing you money or people signing up for deal programs like Amazon Local or Living Social. While these things can save you money on immediate purchases, there are some easy things you can do on a daily basis that will save you money in the long run.

Eat at home more.

Eating out seems to be one of people’s biggest expenses throughout the week. By eating at home, you can save a lot of money for something that is actually better for you. A lot of times you can make the same thing at home that you would have gotten at a restaurant and you can stretch out the food throughout the week. Left overs of something you had Monday night for dinner, you could take as lunch on Wednesday. If you want to eat at home more, but don’t think you will have time to make it every night, make some meals a head of time. This lets you have time to plan out your menu for the week and even save money at the grocery store by taking advantage of the buy one get one (or two) free deals. Once you pre-make your meals for that week, it is easy for you to come home after a long day and simply heat it up in the oven.

Make your own coffee.

Whether you consider your morning coffee as eating out or not, it still costs you money; your daily $5 Latte from your favorite coffee shop adds up quick. If you got coffee every morning from the same place 5 days a week for a month, that’s $100 you spent just on coffee that month. Instead, buy some drip coffee and make your coffee at home. If you prefer the flavored coffee, you can buy different flavored creamers and syrups that will give you the same taste as the fancy coffee shop’s coffee.

Buy generic brands.

It seems a lot of us have become Brand Snobs lately by only wanting to buy name brand products. Buying the generic versions of these items is cheaper and is actually the same thing. Most stores have their own generic versions of headache medicine and antacids that have the same types and amounts of medicine as the name brands. The same thing goes for chips, bread, even soap, makeup and shampoo. By getting the generic brands you can save a lot of money each month. However, there are a few things that you don’t want to buy the generic version of, such as baby diapers, toilet paper or paper towels, garbage bags, and condiments. Generic paper products normally have fewer fibers in them causing them to break easily, and the same goes for garbage bags and diapers. There are some generic products that although they are probably OK to buy, you could make your own easily. Things like dish soap or laundry detergent can be made at home with no harsh chemicals and you can add in your favorite scent if you want.

Turn off your lights and change the bulbs.

There are things you can do around the house that will save you money on your monthly bills. One of the easiest things you can do is to turn lights out when you leave the room. While this alone can have a big impact on your energy bill, you could also change out your regular light bulbs with energy efficient ones. These take less energy to light and put off less heat than normal bulbs.

Get a programmable thermostat.

To also help with your energy bill, you can program your A/C or heater to change temperatures throughout the day. Having a programmable thermostat lets you program the temperature to change when you aren’t in the house. This can save you lots of money since your A/C unit is what has the largest effect on your electric bill.

Reduce your water usage.

When it comes to saving money, every bit helps, including savings on your water bill. A great tip is to turn off the water while you are brushing your teeth. You can also use less water in the shower by turning it off while you are lathering your hair or body and only using the water to rinse off. Another thing you can do is set up a timer for your sprinklers. If you already have a sprinkler system then you know that this helps keep your yard looking great with little effort on your part. By having a timer for your sprinkler system, you will not only use less water, but you won’t over water in one place and over water in another place, keeping your yard looking great, and saving you money.

Create and stick to a budget.

In order to save money, you need to watch your money. By creating a budget you will be able to see what you spend your money on the most and where you may be able to cut costs. You can track your finances with different QuickBooks accounting software programs, or even an Excel spreadsheet. Tracking your money will let you decide what you can afford to keep in as part of your daily habits. If you simply can’t live without your $5 Latte every morning but see that you are buying bottled water when you could drink filtered tap water, you can then use the money you were using for bottled water for your morning Latte. Along with watching your money is creating a savings plan. This could be anything from getting a savings account with cash back to pulling out an amount of money each month and putting it in a safe place. Part of this plan may also be a long term goal. A long term goal may be saving enough money for a down payment on a car or house, or even wanting to have at least $100 per family member to spend on holiday gifts. Having a goal for your savings plan lets you take control of your finances and gives you motivation to keep the money you saved up.

Saving money doesn’t have to be a difficult task or require you to get two jobs. These are just a few simple ways you can save money. You can do some research to see what other things you can do to save money without having to clip coupons or sign up for deal sites.

Visiting New Orleans on a Budget

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Last week, I found myself in New Orleans. I dovetailed on my wife’s annual pharmacy conference. I find it’s a good motivating factor to get me to see a new place. It was just a couple of years that I used it to motivate me to see Washington D.C. for the first time.

The first thing I noticed is that New Orleans is full of life. By that I mean, something is going 24-7. I had a friend say that when he was last in New Orleans he thought that he might die if he stayed another day. That’s just the famous Bourbon Street bars and clubs. However, on this visit New Orleans was taken over by Kentucky basketball fans for the SEC conference. In addition to that, Russell Brand was filming Diablo Cody’s new movie (which is untitled). We got to talk with the movie’s publicist which is something that really doesn’t happen to me every day. Later that weekend, Brad and Angelina Pitt were in town for a $1000 a person event to benefit their Make It Right Foundation, an organization that works to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. In town to help was Rihanna, Ellen, Sheryl Crow and a bunch of other people who you know. Yep, I missed my chance to hang out with Snoop Dogg.

On the Katrina front, I was surprised to see so little damage. That’s more a reflection of staying in the French Quarter which only had about a foot of water according to the locals. My wife and I thought about taking a tour to see the damage, but a tour company profiting on the misfortune of others didn’t sit well with us. We kept looking for a tour company that donated money to a foundation to help, but we didn’t find anything.

However, we had a friend go on such a tour and it leads off our saving money in New Orleans tips.

  • Go on a tour of the Katrina damage – It was a mistake for us to skip the tour on principle. The friend said that the tour was around $25-30 for 3 hours and she came back with some amazing pictures. the pictures weren’t of wreckage like I expected, but showed water lines on places that still seem inhabitable. There were also pictures of the new houses that they are building which are extremely eco-friendly.
  • The Rat Hole – For all the people who are Bourbon Street looking to save a little money on their beverages, I recommend this place. It’s easy to get sucked into the marketing of “Huge Ass Beers”, but I found that The Rat Hole had the cheapest beer on Bourbon Street. The selection isn’t great, but Bourbon Street deals in quantity not quality. I’m not advocating going the quantity route, but I recognize that it’s a part of Bourbon Street. I might as well save people a couple of dollars.
  • McDonalds – I know this is an odd item to have on the list. However, for this northerner, it was interesting to see grits and sausage biscuits and gravy on the breakfast menu. I may be weird in that I like to try any unusual McDonalds items when traveling. For $3 this combo didn’t disappoint. (Again keep in mind that I don’t typically eat these foods, so I am not one to judge quality of them.)
  • Eat at Mother’s – This place is a cafeteria style restaurant. It isn’t much to look at with the old basic furniture and the original sign from 1936. The place puts its efforts into the food. I liked the Jambalaya, while my wife preferred the red beans and rice. We got a side of the ham, because it seemed to be their specialty (it’s on the sign from 1936), but it wasn’t that much different from sliced deli ham. That’s one thing to skip. Be sure to take a few minutes to see the autographed pictures (Howie Mandel with hair!) and the funny signs. My favorite was, “Our credit manager is Helen Waite. If you want to pay with credit, go to Helen Waite.” (Note: They do accept credit cards, the sign was for people using credit in 1936.)
  • Window Shop – My wife and I spent some time on Royal Street (the next street over from Bourbon St.) window shopping. The danger with this is that we passed some enticing items. One place, Vintage 329 was never open despite a sign saying that it was open 8 days a week. We wanted to visit it because they had a first edition Harry Potter collector’s set of all US versions of the book signed in the window. I asked my wife (a big Harry fan) how much she thought it would go for and she said around $500. I told her that if it’s under $1000, I would buy it on the spot. We never could get a price since it wasn’t open, but I see a new one on Ebay for $8900. The Vintage 329 didn’t seem to be in as good a shape, and they kept it displayed in direct sunlight (why?), but I think they would have been asking for more than $1000.

There are surely plenty of other ways to save money, but this is the last trip we have planned for some time. I also don’t know when I’ll have the next opportunity to go to New Orleans. The combination of the two left us spending a little money than when we are in our usual frugal mode.

On the “anti-save money” front, The Old Coffee Pot and the Court of Two Sisters are perhaps two of the best places to have brunch. I wrote about The Old Coffee Pot last week, but the Court of Two Sisters put on an excellent jazz brunch in a courtyard with historic fixtures and the smell of lilacs. It’s not low on price, but it is high on value.

Best of Lazy Man and Money

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I thought I’d take a little time today to highlight some of the more popular posts I’ve written over the four and a half years I’ve been blogging. It has nothing to do with the great traffic I’m seeing this morning from Kimberly Palmer’s article on how to make extra money. It simply seems fitting to look back since it’s the start of the year. (Are you buying this? Even a little bit?)

For those new to the site, I’m a pretty lazy guy in general. However, the Lazy Man name stems from the fact that I had all these great business ideas, but never the drive (nor the finances and connections) to get off the ground. If I’m not going to actually implement these ideas, I might as well write about them, right? Well, somewhere along the line, my plan changed, and I started to focus on personal finance. The result is some 1,200+ articles about how I’m trying to save money, make money, retire early… all the things that you came here for.

I’ll let you be the judge if I did a good job at that. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Thousands of ways to save money – Unless you are unusually talented or lucky, it is extremely difficult to retire early without keeping an eye on spending. I put together a page of all my articles on how to save money on just about anything. The advice isn’t to cut all the fun stuff out of your life, but how to keep all the fun on a fraction of the budget. Warning, it’s addictive and you could lose a day there.
  • How To Be Successful – I wrote this article a couple of years back and it still resonates with people today. In fact, I got an email last night from someone who is trying to sort out his life after a bunch of missteps. As soon as I’m done with this post, I’m off to email him, to see if what kind of wisdom I can share with him. (This is a scary thought for me.) I always try to get back to my readers, so feel free to contact me.
  • MonaVie – I became somewhat famous (in blogging circles at least) for my article on MonaVie. In the article, I asked a simple question of whether it was a scam, since $45 for 25 ounces of juice isn’t the norm… it’s not close to the norm. The article garnered more than 5000 comments and lead me to create a spin-off site MonaVie Scam.

That should be enough reading to keep you busy. In case it’s not, these final two articles (not really the Best of Lazy Man and Money) round out a bit of what you’d read here:

  • Make SMARTER Goals This Year – I think I watched Office Space (if there is such a thing) one too many times before writing this one. If you are looking to keep your New Year’s Resolutions this is a great place to start.
  • Hedge Rising Food and Gas Prices with ETFs – I didn’t want to leave you with the impression that this website is just about saving money. You see a lot of investing ideas such as this one as well.

For those who came here from that Yahoo article, I’ve gotten tons of mail asking a question I should have anticipated. You want to know How to Start a Blog… well click that link and dig in. Please recognize that it is a broad question and that article is just geared to get you going.

P.S. Don’t forget to check check Kimberly Palmer’s book Generation Earn, which I reviewed here ;-).