Drive
a Little Greener, Save a Little Green
by Jean Chatzky
June 27,
2008
Gas
prices and a guilty conscience have made me a smarter, cleaner
driver. Come along for the ride.
Last
year I swapped out of my five-year-old smallish station wagon
for a seven-seat SUV. I did it for two reasons: fitting four
kids, none of whom weigh enough to sit in the front seat, into
my vehicle so that I could participate in a couple of carpools;
and getting up the aptly named Long Hill Road that leads from
my house to the train station in the dead of winter. That's
it. I didn't think about gas mileage, which of course I'm regretting
now whenever I fork over $65 to fill the thing up or turn on
the Discovery Channel to be reminded that I'm melting polar
bears out of a habitat.
Philip
Reed, senior consumer advice editor at Edmunds.com, is hearing
from a lot of people like me. "I'm not sure they all actually
will admit they regret their purchases, but they are looking
for options." Dumping a gas guzzler, he concedes, may
sound like a fix, but it's not necessarily the smartest or
greenest thing to do. "This," he says plainly, "is
probably the worst time ever to sell an SUV." And getting
out of a lease (some new Internet-based solutions notwithstanding)
can be even more financially punishing than selling. "Don't
get panicky and make a rash decision," he cautions, then
adds: "Make sure gas prices are taking the economic toll
you think they are."
I
decide he's right and run some numbers. I put about 12,000
miles a year on my car (about 1,600 fewer than the average
American, according to Cambridge Energy Research) and get about
16 miles per gallon. That means I'm buying 750 gallons of gas
annually (about 50 more than average, thanks to the size of
my car). At $3 a pop, that's a cost of $2,250. At $4.30, which
I paid in mid-May, that's $3,225. The difference: $975. It's
a lot but, I have to say, not as much as I thought. With gas
prices in the news daily, it feels like more.
So
for now getting rid of my big car is out. As is the solution
that the New York Times reported many Americans are trying:
adding a third, smaller car to the average two-car family's
fleet. It could just be me, but spending another 20 grand to
save $1,000 or so on gas (assuming I drove the little wheels
about half the time) seems extreme. But there are less radical
ways to shell out fewer dollars and spew out less carbon. Here's
what I'm doing.
Driving
the smaller car. My boyfriend's mid-size sedan—which
gets closer to 23 mpg—is not exactly my car, but I have
access to it. That makes me very similar to most two-car families.
By using the big car for short trips and carpooling and the
smaller one for long trips, I can transfer 2,000 miles a year.
Yearly savings: $163; 0.34 tons of carbon dioxide.
Logging
and planning my driving. I talk about tracking your spending
all the time. This is the same concept. For a week, log everywhere
you drive. You'll see patterns. Then sit down and ask yourself:
Which trips could have been consolidated? Which eliminated?
Use that information to plan your driving for the next day
and week. Sophie Uliano, author of Gorgeously Green, also suggests
making a short call rather than a long trip. "Stick a
list of the phone numbers of the stores you frequently shop
on the fridge. Then call before you drive to be sure they have
what you need." For me these steps eliminated at least
one random round trip daily for an average savings of eight
miles a day, 2,920 miles a year. Savings: $785; 1.6 tons of
carbon dioxide.
Using
public transportation. I used to alternate driving and taking
the train to work. Now I try to use the train as much as possible.
Financially, even with the gas price hike, it's a wash. But
if I had access through my employer to a transportation savings
account, it wouldn't be. I could pay for the train with pretax
dollars and save nearly a third. Call your benefits department
to see if there's one on your menu. Savings: 2.3 tons of carbon
dioxide.
Making
my gas go further. I was already with the program when it came
to checking the tire pressure regularly. The real gas saver,
though, is to lighten the pressure you place on the gas pedal,
however. "It's not the most popular tip, but it's really
the best one," says Uliano. "Drive at or below the
speed limit, and when you are on the freeway, set your cruise
control to less than you would normally have it. If you normally
go 70, set it to 60 and it makes a huge difference." Brad
Proctor, founder of GasPriceWatch.com, also suggests trying
to drive more smoothly rather than accelerating and stopping
hard the way most Americans do. "We've done fuel economy
tests with a large pickup truck, and when we drove smoothly,
we got 21 miles per gallon," he says. If I can squeeze
out two miles more per gallon, it adds up: $357 a year; 0.74
tons of carbon dioxide.
Total
it, and I can save more than $1,300 a year and emit five fewer
tons of carbon dioxide. I now know that's not going to be enough
in the future. For me the bottom line is that this is my last
big car. First, I'm convinced that gas prices will be high
from now on. Says Proctor: "There's nothing on the horizon
to lower that cost unless there's a global recession. I wouldn't
even want to think about what would happen if a hurricane came
through. Throw that into the mix and $6 or $7 a gallon is possible."
Second,
where I once felt pretty terrific behind the wheel of my SUV,
I now feel pretty guilty about both wasting resources and liquifying
the polar ice caps. Those are good incentives to get on a conservation
kick no matter the price of gas, and to stick with it.
The
opinions and views expressed in this publication are for general
information only and are not necessarily those of Mutual of
America Life Insurance Company.
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