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Thursday, December 20, 2012

How long $20 fuel lasts

Ok so Monday I warm up my vehicle in the morning before we head off to school as it is bitter cold and it screams if you drive it too soon - even if plugged in.

When I get in I see that the tank is low and that  my 'range' is 78 KM. Now I get that the range is a subjective thing and not tick for tick like the odometer is. It's still less fuel than I want in my vehicle on a frigid winter day. Sure it's 7K to work and 7K home but who wants to run out of gas in these temps? not lil ole moi.

So I am already en route and realize all I have is $20 cash in my fuel envelope (wallet) that I leave in my car. Ok, $20 it is then.  I plop that in and off I go. The range now read 178K so that $20 got me about 100 K in range.

 I drive home Monday after work, and do one quick Walmart run that night. Tuesday morning I warm up the car for about 10 min and off I go to work and home again. No other stops.

Ditto for Wed.

This morning I get in and realize I am back at that magical 78K. I thought that was a rather interesting coincidence that it was the exact same number.

So what did that $20 get me?

3 trips to and from school and 1 trip to Walmart.

And quite a bit of time of warming up in these bitter cold temps.

I just found it an interesting observation.

Shiver me timbers it is cold out.

Keep warm everyone :-)

7 comments:

Mysti said...

$20 will give me ONE round trip to work. That's it.

Tania said...

Haha. I remember when I was getting ready for my first long trip (33hr round trip), and I was calculating gas... it came to about 13 cents a mile at that time (yours seems to be 20c/mile). Yeah, I was overplanning, but it was an interesting discovery! :)

Jolie said...

Loving the perspectives, Tanner and Mysti.

Keep 'em coming :-)

~Carla~ said...

Brutal. :(

Hawaii Planner said...

I fill up about 1x/month & it's $80-90, & that's for diesel. That wil get me to work every day (5x/week, to the kids school for pick up, for errands around town, & likely one slightly longer weekend drive). Not sure on the mileage - I do know that the car gets excellent gas mileage. I'll track it more carefully & report back!

Jolie said...

Carla - at least prices dropped from $1.299 to $1.099 :-)

HP - Once a month is pretty darn good!

The Asian Pear said...

Yikes. Doesn't seem to last very long... I remember when my Dad complained about gas being at 0.49cents being pricey. Now those are the good ol' days!