gas math

It's May 9th, 2011 and gas prices are . . . wow!

I'm 28 and I remember gas being $.79 a gallon when I was a sophomore in high school.

Since my high school days, which isn't that long ago, gas has shot up 525%. And this is only in the past 12 years. In these past 12 years, gas prices have increased like no other time in history.

Throughout the years, people have been cutting their gas consumption in some pretty interesting ways.

-I know people who ride their bicycle in the summer.

-I know people who have bought mopeds for summer driving.

-I've seen older people driving electric golf carts on steroids around town.

-Some people pay a premium price for gas/electric hybrid cars.

-Some people cut back and save money in other areas.

-They're even making purely electric cars now.

So, I started coming up with some ideas:

Last summer, I thought I'd ride my bike to work everyday.

Nope. I think I gave up after a week.

At one point, my wife and I thought we'd try having one car throughout the summer.

Um, we soon found that this was a bad idea!

Car "tug of war" isn't fun.

The other day, I found out that if I drove to a gas station 10 miles away from where I live, instead of paying $4.15 for gas, I would only have to pay $3.99. So, is it worth driving a total of 20 miles (10 there and 10 back) to save $.15 a gallon?

Math…

Now, the car I have has gets 20 miles per gallon. It also has a 20 gallon tank.

Because I get 20 miles per gallon, I would use one gallon of gas to make the trip.

If I arrived at the gas station and put a full 20 gallons in my tank, it would cost me $79.80.

If I traveled to the nearest gas station (1 block away), I would end up saving a gallon in gas.

I'd save a gallon of gas because I don't have to drive 20 total miles to the other gas station.

Instead of putting 20 gallons in my tank, I would only have to put in 19.

This means I would pay 4.15 for 19 gallons, which turns out to be $78.85.

Spend 30 minutes and pay $79.80?

or

Spend 5 minutes and pay $78.85?

Math helped me realize that this was another bad idea.

I'm all for interesting ways to cut back at the pump. Some are better than others. And some are just bad.

Ideas…?

Anyone…?

I still like the "golf cart on steroids" idea.