Frugal Friday

It's rainy and miserable. But here's a photo of the pot of mint that's waiting for Mojito's if when the sun comes out again.

Yesterday I paid $4.31 a gallon to fill up my car. It's ridiculous!

Our gas bill for May was, however, only $125 compared to $183 in March and $223 in April. It'll probably be higher in June because gas prices have gone up by almost a dollar a gallon, but I think we're doing pretty well.

I will list a couple of things we do. I'm aware that not everyone has the options available to us but maybe one or two of these will help.

Combine errands
This is by far the biggest fuel saver.

Currently it costs about 50c a mile to drive my car, excluding depreciation and car payments. There are some good stats for car ownership costs here. To calculate your cost per mile in fuel only the formula is as follows: (Price per gallon of fuel) / (Avg. mpg)

I have a list with columns for Home Depot, Costco, Trader Joe's, the fabric store (of course), etc. - all the stores I visit regularly. When a need comes up, I (1) ask myself if it's urgent, (2) if not, write it down on the list. When the lists gets pretty long or I have to get something NOW (like fabric), I visit the stores all in one trip.

Keep your tires inflated correctly
Every pound-per-inch under the manufacturer's recommendation for your tires loses you one mile per gallon per fill-up. Really.

Drive like an old lady (almost)
Don't pull away from the traffic light like Jeff Gordon at the start of a Nascar race. Don't race the guy next to you to try and get to the lane merge first.
DON'T, however, do 30mph in the 45mph zone or 40mph in the fast lane on the freeway. That would be taking it over the top.

Shop around for gas
Gasbuddy.com will give you up to date gas prices for stations in your area. Don't make a special trip out of your way for cheaper gas, but if you're in the neighborhood of a cheaper gas station while running your errands, it may be an option. Prices around here differ up to 25c a gallon, which, in my car is about $4 a fill-up. Nothing to sneeze at.
I am picky about where I fill up because I fully believe that I get better gas mileage at Shell, Chevron, or 76 than at ARCO, for instance.

Use public transportation
Here we are lucky. The public transport system is great. My husband has always taken the bus to work and his company pays for the bus pass. It takes longer, but allows him to get some work done, reduces the stress of sitting in traffic, and saves gas and parking.

Frugal Friday

This photo has nothing to do with this post, but I just can't have a photo-less post. Rhodies from my garden.

As I've mentioned before, I'm on a serious mission to save money around here. Everything's getting more expensive and the amount of money coming in is not increasing. I'm not sure if anyone's interested at all, but I thought I'd use Fridays to share some of the things I'm doing to try and keep our heads above water.

In my previous post I had made dog biscuits and laundry detergent. I now have the results of that test.

The dog biscuits, which were the same size as Milk Bones, and therefore could be calculated by the oz, were MUCH cheaper.

Milk Bones: 20 cents / oz
Homemade: 10 cents / oz

The laundry detergent, however, was another story. Even though the Costco laundry detergent claims to be for 200 loads, I have a super size washing machine and only do large loads, so I only get 128 loads from a bucket. (Don't even ask how I calculated that, just trust me)
So...

Kirkland Signature powdered laundry detergent: 10 cents a load
Homemade laundry detergent: 8 cents a load

Is it worth going through all that trouble for 2 cents a load?

Frugal tip of the week:
Only do full loads of laundry. Half loads use the same amount of electricity and/or gas as full loads. I have a laundry hamper with three compartments. Each of them holds exactly one load. This was a total coincidence, but I love it, because I only do laundry when a compartment is full.