$2.95 / gal this weekend

Let's say you drive 15,000 miles per year and your old car gets 15 miles per gallon. If you replace it with a car that gets 30 mpg (still pretty modest) you'll save 500 gallons of gas per year. At the current gas price that's $1,500 per year. What else can you do to save so much so easily?

I thought the role of financial planners was to encourage you to save money.

Paid $2.889 a gallon today...it went up from $2.729 yesterday.

How do you save money if you sell a car you own, an older car, and buy a new car? Pick a number... either way you are now paying a car payment, what if it was only $200 per month {pretty damm low}, that is $2200 a year more in expense. If you can afford a really new car you would be paying more like $400 or $600 a year which would be $4800 or 7200 a year.

Sorry TM, I wasn't clear. This was for the case where you're ready to replace your car anyway.

Before I bought my Honda Insight, in 2003, I did the whole economic analysis and determined that the economics wouldn't be favorable unless gas went to $5/gallon. I bought the car anyway. Of course, after the car is paid off in a few months, I'll be saving quite a bit, compared to the Ford Ranger that used to be my primary vehicle.

HLJ, Got ya... But you do get my point. There are quite a number of emotionally motivated simpletons out there who think that by simply owning a car the gets better gas milage in someway saves them a ton of money. It might, it might not. There are quite a few factors that effect such a decision. Same for driving 10 miles to save $0.05 a gallon on gas. I have a boat with a 135 gal tank. I filled it with 100 gallons of gas the other day. The place near us sells gas for $2.90, the place in town, 10 miles away, for $2.85. I would have saved $5.00 in gas by driving to town. Towing the boat with my truck, getting about 12 mpg under towning conditions, would have cost me 2.00, I would have saved $3 by making the drive, not really worth it. People need to appy the same thought process to practical applications in buying a car. The bottom line is you are right, big differences are not going to happen till gas were to suddenly jump up to $5 or $6 a gallon.

TM,
In the last five years I've been involved in many renewable energy feasibility studies, probably 50 to 100, and I can only think of three that have resulted in hardware on the ground. This is almost always a decision based on economics.

I agree that most people buying fuel-efficient vehicles don't take economics into consideration in their car choices (or at least they don't do the math), but neither do people buying a Mustang or a Corvette or an Explorer. They might determine if they can afford the car payment, but probably don't give too much thought to the other operating expenses.

Good points. True, it goes both ways.

I've seen the passdown of the cost on our imported goods as well.

Fruits, sugar, soda pop.

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$2.76? In New York?! When, I wonder. I live out in the 'burbs where it's a bit lower than in the city, and I'm lucky my local station's price just dropped from $3.21 to $3.17. I'm just glad to not have to pay European prices.

$2.849 at a fill-up today.

Finally dropped below $2.80 today. $2.79 today.

$2.76 today

$2.99 at the Maverik on West Franklin and Maple Gove in Boise, Idaho, today.