How a few mpg’s could save you $1500 a year

I’m currently in the market for a new, and by new I mean used, car and as I couldn’t sleep past 7 this Sunday morning, my mind seemed keen to do some calculating. Thanks Android phone for making sure everything I need in life is within arms reach. Google feel free to give me some free stuff for the plug.

So, a car I have my eye on is a fun to drive Audi with low miles for the year, averaging about 29 mpg’s; miles per gallon for the layman. I got to thinking, what’s the driving range in a car like that? So we do the math, 29mpg x 17.4(tank capacity), and we come up with the number of 504.6. That’s almost a full round trip to Tallahassee and back from Atlanta (seminole alumni) #GoNoles. Apologies for the hashtag.

But what does that number mean to my wallet? Let’s divide that driving range by the dollar amount it takes to fill up a tank. In this case, that number will be $4(1 gallon premium) x 17.4, equaling $69.6. We’ll now divide the total mile range by that cost

504.6 / 69.6 = 7.25 mi/$

This number represents the amount of miles I can get per dollar spent. Not too shabby I think. Now we can take this number, and multiply it by the average miles driven a day/month/year. It’s been a busy year for me, so I’m going to say I’ve driven 15,000 over the past 12 months.

15,000 / 7.25 = $2,069, or $173/mo

Good times, but that’s for a car getting about 29 mpg highway. As many good memories that we’ve had, my current Izuzu Rodeo isn’t anywhere near that. I’m sad to say she’s averaging more like 15 mpg highway. Please don’t stone me green peace people; the car was high school gift many moons ago. Little say in the matter. *awkward pause* Let’s use the formula again for my current SUV from start to finish to give you an idea of how to find this information yourself.

**if you don’t know how to find your current highway mpg, divide the max miles you can drive on a full tank, by the tank capacity, in my case

300 mi / 20 gl tank = 15 mpg <—- This is bad. Like, no soup for you, wave your finger in someone’s face bad.

$3.54(Reg) x 20gl = $70.8

300mi / $70.8 = 4.23mi/$

15,000mi / 4.23 = $3547 or $295/mo

This explains why my savings account hasn’t been growing as quickly as I’d like!  So what’s the moral of the story you ask? After all this you still don’t get it?? If your petrol costs are as abysmal as mine, perhaps it’s time to look for a more efficient means of transportation. I understand well the financial argument for staying with what you have, but given what I’ve found here today, you may not be saving as much money as you think. Food for thought.

Happy Driving