Five Cheapskate Ways to Keep Gas in Mom's Mini-van

When I was growing up in the suburbs, I heard my dad say once that of all the places to live the suburbs were the worst. Better to be in the city or the sticks. We were the maverick family. My friends' moms drove station wagons and VW buses while my own mother rumbled around in whatever Corvair in my dad's fleet happened to be road worthy.

My parents were not typical suburbanites, but I am. I cruise residential neighborhoods at 25 miles per hour in my six passenger mini-van as I rack up a sickening 17.4 miles to the gallon. Now I'm thinking that my parents' eccentricities had merit. I have all kinds of schemes cooking on how to rid myself of my suburban trappings and get a scooter, but until that day this is how I avoid the gas station.

1. Walk with purpose. This is really hard to do because anything I want to get to is at least a half mile away. But the other day I had to pay my sewer bill so I did the one mile round trip to the township building. The sewer bill walk met my criterion for never carrying anything heavy like a sweating gallon of milk.

2. Say no to gas burning children. "Mom, can we go to the mall?" "No, the mall is six miles away and at current gas prices, the round trip will cost four dollars. Do you have four dollars?" Then if my children have four dollars, they cough it up and we go to the mall.

3. Carpool with other moms. A big time saver since it cuts driving in half, it also means that instead of one stinky football boy, I get three. There is also a non-standard way to carpool with other moms. This involves not agreeing to take a teenager anywhere until the teenager finds suitable transportation for the return trip (someone else's mom).

4. Vary the shotgun game. I do this by parking in the driveway before my husband gets home so that he blocks me in. Then it is so much easier to take his gas-saving Subaru.

5. Delay, delay, delay. The Roman general most responsible for defeating Hannibal had the nickame Cunctator ("the Delayer"). I put off all familial requests that require my mini-van until I have at least three errands within one given area. Delaying has three positive outcomes: 1) The person making the request forgets about it or 2) does it himself or 3) if I have it on my list and am able to take care of it during the course of the day, I get appreciated for my unexpected kindness.

The key to successful gas stinginess is pretending to be in the country or the city. In the country no one just hops in the car and runs to the store because they're out of eggs. If the hen's not laying that day, they wait until there's a list of needed items because every errand means a thirty mile round trip.

In the city the kids know how to get themselves around. They get sent to the store for that egg. So I don't let my suburban kids treat me like their personal chauffeur. They've got brains in their head for a reason.