Driving up the Costs

When did filling the car with fuel start equating to an adrenalin-fuelled extreme sport? Being a large family, we drive a large family car with a large fuel tank. Our daily commute to school is a round trip of around 10 miles and we tack on to that various other trips throughout the week, as well as those journeys that I need to make for work. This brings up the weekly mileage to an average of about 250 miles.

Obviously I attempt to conduct as much of this driving as possible at a fuel efficient speed but it’s not always possible, especially on short journeys, and occasionally on long, childless journeys when you’ve got the radio turned up loud and you’re revelling in your driving freedom.

I rarely fill my car with fuel. I just can’t face it. Instead I put in around £20 at a time and kid myself that I’m not doing it every other day. Recently, however, I did fill it and was horrified to be presented with a bill of £80. What happened to diesel being the cheaper option? When did that all change? How long will it be before we simply can’t afford to use the car at all? And is that the plan to ease congestion I wonder – stop mending the roads and keep pushing up the fuel prices and it’ll all be pony and traps before we know it.

So in light of the fact that the price of fuel just isn’t going to come down (I’m ignoring the 1p decrease because it just hasn’t really happened has it?) what can we do to save money and limit the burden without resorting to the aforementioned pony and trap?

At times like this I always turn to the wonderful world of twitter to get the low-down on how people are managing their lives to suit. As usual some lovely folk came up trumps with suggestions like Jay’s idea to park a mile away from school and walk in – this is a good catch all solution, great for ‘walk to school’ week, good for getting some fresh air into the kids first thing and it will make a difference to your fuel bill if you keep it up.

Liz and Ben both celebrated the fact that they work from home, and this can make a massive difference to your ongoing costs. ParentalCircle reminded of the importance of removing roof boxes and cutting down drag by keeping off unnecessary weight in the car whilst Tara informed us that the optimum speeds for maximising fuel efficiency are 56 and 72 mph. Victoria advocated shopping on foot and using public transport and Chetna told us that she shares school runs with friends which not only saves fuel but also makes everyone’s lives a little bit easier.

These are all brilliant tips – we’d love to hear yours….
 

Tuesday, 5th April 2011

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