How My Family Accomplished a 25 Percent Reduction in Annual Gasoline Consumption

With gasoline now at $4.00 per gallon my family and I have decided that it time to change our fuel consumption habits and take positive steps to reduce our fuel usage by 25%. By our way of reasoning a 25% reduction in gasoline consumption has the equivalent effect of buying gasoline for $3.00 per gallon.

Weird math? Perhaps so, but it has provided us with an incentive to make a concerted and honest effort to save a resource we can no longer afford to waste.

We are a family of four, have two cars, one lawnmower, one weed eater, and one blower ...all of which run on gasoline.

Our first step was to determine our baseline by measuring our current gasoline consumption.

As all of our gasoline purchases are made using a credit card it was fairly easy to convert monthly charges into purchased gallons of fuel for the previous year. We were surprised to find that our annual consumption reached 1,725 gallons per year. At $4.00 per gallon our annual fuel cost would be nearly $7,000. This would give us a targeted savings of 431 gallons per year and a cash savings of $1,725.

The next step was to determine where the fuel was being consumed.

We developed a list of major activities that require the use of gasoline in our family. The list included commuting to work, commuting to school, weekly shopping and errands, business travel, two teenagers using the car on weekends, Summer and winter vacations, attending church, holiday travel and small engine use (lawn mowers, edger, and blowers)

We used this list to estimate/calculate the quantity of gasoline consumed by each activity. For example the quantity and cost of fuel required for commuting to work was calculated as below:

Commute To Work: We knew that the majority of fuel was required to fill the family car which was used to drive to and from work five days a week. This required a drive of 44 miles round trip, 5 days a week and 50 weeks per year for an annual distance of 11,000 miles. Optimistically, we calculated our in-town mileage performance at 14 miles per gallon. This resulted in annual fuel consumption of 786 gallons required to commute to work.

Similar calculations were made for each of the activities identified as major fuel/gasoline consumers: business travel, teen car use, shopping, errands, vacations and holiday travel, etc.

These calculations provided sufficiently accurate data to identify how our fuel dollars and gallons were being allocated and opportunities for targeting reductions and savings.

Our final list provided several surprises as to where our fuel dollars were being spent and the quantity of dollars and gallons consumed for each activity.

Our consumption requirements were identified as follows:

Commute to Work - 9,500 annual miles, 679 annual gallons [38 miles/day, 5 days/week]

Teenager weekend car use: - 3,000 annual miles, 214 annual gallons [30 miles/day, 2 days/week]

Commute to school - 2,280 annual miles, 163 annual gallons [12 miles/day, 5 days/wk, 38 weeks]

Business travel - 2,400 annual miles, 133 annual gallons [200 miles/day, 12 days/yr]

Miscellaneous Shopping/errands - 2,080 annual miles, 149 annual gallons [10 miles/day, 4 days/week]

Holiday(s) travel - 1,200 annual miles, 67 annual gallons [300 miles/day, 4 days/yr]

Summer Vacation(s) - 750 annual miles, 42 annual gallons [250 miles/day, 3 days/yr]

Winter Vacation - 460 annual miles, 26 annual gallons [230 miles, 2 days/yr]

Church attendance - 312 annual miles, 22 annual gallons [6 miles/day, 1 day/week]

Grocery store - 300 annual miles, 21 annual gallons [6 miles/day, 1 day/week]

Lawn care - 22 gallons/yr

Unaccounted for mileage - . 6,432 annual miles, 402 annual gallons6,

Total Annual miles - 25,282

Total Annual Gallons - 1,725

Total Annual Gasoline Cost - $6,900

Identifying the sources of fuel consumption allowed us to identify opportunities for reduction in usage. We consolidated these opportunities into a family fuel savings plan.

Fuel Savings Plans:

1. - Carpooling: After reviewing these numbers with a neighbor who also commutes to the city daily, we agreed to carpool into the city alternating driving weeks.

Net savings: 4,750 annual miles, 340 annual gallons, $1,360 annually, 17.5% reduction in fuel use

2. - Reduce Teen use: Set objective to reduce teen use from 30 to 25 miles per weekend day. Surprisingly. My teenagers were in favor of this and even (on their own) agreed to keep a beginning and ending mileage log for their weekend use!

Net Savings: 500 annual miles, 34 annual gallons, $136 annually, 1.7% reduction in fuel use

3. - School Commute: Teens will car pool with neighborhood schoolmates every other week. Other parents also very supportive

Net Savings: 1,140 annual miles, 81 annual gallons, $326 annually, 4.2% reduction in fuel use

4. - Reduce Shopping/errands: Limit miscellaneous shopping and errands to two days per week vs. current 4 days.

Net Savings: 1,040 annual miles, 74 annual gallons, $296 annually, 3.8% reduction in fuel use

5. -Combine Summer vacation trips: Combine beach trips from two, two-day trips into one four-day beach trip.

Net Savings: 375 annual miles, 12.5 annual gallons, $50 annually, 0.6% reduction in fuel use

6. - Eliminate additional Winter VacationTravelTravel - Combine travel to winter vacation with Holiday travel to same geographic area.

Net Savings: 460 annual miles, 26 annual gallons, $104 annually, 1.3% reduction in fuel consumption

7. - Reduce trips to Grocery Store - Currently travel to grocery store once per week. Reduce trips to once every other week.

Net Savings: 150 annual miles, 11 annual gallons, $44 annually, 0.6% reduction in fuel use

Completing our plan we were surprised at how a few, not too difficult changes, could make a major impact in our fuel consumption without a major change in lifestyle. The most difficult change for the family was reducing our summer trips to a nearby beach from two to one per summer.

The total effect of implementing our entire fuel savings plan was as follows:

Annual reduction in miles driven 8,415

Annual reduction in gallons of gas consumed 578

Annual gas cost savings $2,316

Percent reduction in fuel usage 33.4%

Is our plan realistic and achievable? We as a family unit think it is. One were surprising outcome resulting from this process is how supportive our teenage children are. They see this as their (our) contribution to reducing our carbon footprint. I see that too, but most of all I like saving $2,316 a year, not to mention reduced car mileage and the resulting wear and tear on the vehicle.

Three months to date we are well on schedule implementing and achieving our fuel savings plan.

I hardily recommend this exercise for everyone.