Lose your waste

I'll tell you right off the bat, this is a post that may only interest me.

I've worked diligently. And this is what I've got.

The blasted tv I bought, that jacked my electric bill up to $250, has been managed. The bill (which is an entire city bill including water, sewage, trash and electricity) was only $86 dollars and some change this month. The number one thing that helped was to begin to get consistent about unplugging the tv & dvd player not just turning it off. I've even done the same thing with my microwave. It only takes a moment, though I'm not as consistent about the microwave. It's a little harder to remember.

Beyond that, hypermiling is really working. I regularly got between 27 & 33mpg before, and now I'm getting between 39 and the highest I've gotten is 42.5 (a number I get more often as I get better at the techniques). It certainly helps that the gas prices have gone down. :) I paid less than 20 bucks for gas this week (the whole week). It made me happy. :)

Lights don't stay on in my house unless there is a need for it. In the daytime, I don't typically have them on unless I'm trying to read and it just isn't bright enough.
And now I'm researching switching to cell phone only and ditching my home phone.
That's the one that makes me a little sad, I like having a regular line, but I'm pretty sure I will get used to it. Once I stop frowning at it.

This whole thing isn't about depriving myself. But, if you look at your life, there's a lot of excess. If you have a cell phone, where someone can reach you all the time, do you really need a home phone? I'm not saying you do or you don't, I'm just bringing the question out for you to think about. I currently have internet, and phone with Verizon for about $90, and my cell phone is a pay as you go thing (which is ok since I rarely use it) and I usually have to "top up" which costs 32.50 every 2-3 mos. So lets call that $100 for phone/internet.
I researched T-Mobile and found a $50 plan that was right for me (am I sounding like a commercial) and if I switch my internet to Suddenlink, it can get a monthly rate of $20. Which is $70 + tax for my phone.

A savings of approximately $30. A total of $360 per year.

These little things are making a difference in my finances. It's fun to watch. And the main thing I hope to really take away from all this is just a simple awareness. I don't want to waste. And when you really start looking at it, you realize that you waste a lot, a lot. And in some cases, that waste costs you money. I don't want to waste stuff, I don't want to waste money.

I would call it being a good steward, but that sounds phony. It sounds like trying to make things sound religious, or putting a spiritual spin on something just... normal. So the goal, is nothing more special than just seeing how much stuff I can not waste. It's most easily measured by seeing the bills lower, or dividing the number of miles driven by the amount of gas purchased.

There are a lot of other things you can do to save money, and a ton of great articles about it. But one of the things I've learned is to not get wrapped up trying to do all of the suggestions. But to fiddle around until you find the ones that you can live with doing.

Long story short, all of your resources are gifts from God. I've been thinking about the parable of the talents, and I know the symbolism and I get the "heavenly meaning" in the "earthly story" but, at the same time I wondered what would happen if the master gave us talents to invest... would he return years later to find that we'd not only spent his talent, but used the income to qualify for a house too expensive for us, and a credit card with a $50,000 limit?

I don't know. And I don't want to condemn myself and just writhe underneath that burden. But I do want to do better. God is good to teach me.

A new tank

So, tonight I filled my car up with gas again.

Immediately after I filled up my tank last time I noticed that my gas gauge needle didn't go as far up as it normally did.
And here's what may have happened.

I found out more tips this week. One of them being: Always fill your tank during the coolest portion of the day that you can if it's hot outside. On hot days there's more vapors which means more gas going out of the nozzle, but less going into your car.

I don't know for sure if that's what happened, and I certainly haven't looked up scientific facts on this yet, but that's what it sounds like might have happened.

All that said, I drove 420.5 miles and had to purchase 11.186gallons of gas which comes out to 37.59MPG.

I followed the new tips when I filled up and waited till the cool of the evening, PLUS another tip that suggested I either hold the handle myself or put the lever on the nozzle at it's slowest setting to hopefully prevent even more vapors.

That's all. Drive carefully, and the next time your blood pressure rises while you're stuck behind some grandma Moses out for a Sunday drive.. well, be patient because I could very well be that grandma Moses and if you're too rude I might blog about you.

420.5 / 11.186 = 37.59163

Hypermiling

406.2 divided by 9.831
Can you do that math in your head? No? Well let me help you. The answer is 41.3
Right up there with 5 loaves 2 fishes divided by 5,000 equaling 12 baskets.

Ok.. Maybe not quite that miraculous but still….
That 41.3 is Miles Per Gallon.
I’ve been practicing this wonderful art called Hypermiling. Most simply put, it's just a bunch of tricks to get the very most out of every last drop of gasoline in your car. I typically got 27mpg. Then I started hypermiling. My first go-round netted me a whopping 33MPG. So, having seen results I got a little more serious about it, and this last time I netted that wonderful 41.3MPG. And just for the record (since it's always the next question) I drive a '97 Nissan Sentra.
I’m still learning, but I know I haven’t gotten as good a mileage as I could have yet so I’m excited to see what my next reading is. It doesn’t have much to do with my Christian walk, except if I try and put it under the heading of being a good steward of my money. Just to throw a little bit more math out there for you; by working on this hypermiling thing, this last tank of gas saved me 6.22222222 gallons of gas and $21.71 (that’s using the current rate of $3.49 for gas).
Ok. Just in case anyone else is willing to give this a shot, here are the few tips I’ve learned along the way.
I’ve read tips that give you lots of facts, and I’ll link you to them, but I’m just going to tell you what I did. You want better details and facts… read the articles.

1: I slowed down. I don’t go any faster than 50mph. Yeah, it’s slow. Get over it. So far, based on where I generally drive it hasn't posed a hazard so far. If it did, I'd speed up some. Some.
2: Yeah I know this one is crazy, but if I put my car in a position I have to back out of, I try and do it on an incline. Then, to back out I simply put my car in neutral, and roll backwards without ever turning on my car. Once I’m out then I start the car and drive off.
3: For a 4 cylinder, my car has some get-up-and-go to it. I had to stop that. No quick take offs. Period. It's a bummer.
4: I use my brakes as little as possible. Brakes slow you down, you paid gas to gain that speed, so don’t throw it away by using your brakes unless you have to. That means watching out for lights and, especially when no one is behind me, I just coast up to stop signs with my car in neutral rather than spending the gas to get to the stop sign quickly. Also, I usually keep a good distance from the car in front of me anyway, and it's helped out in this experiment because sometimes they've hit their brakes and most of the time by the time I've coasted up to them, they've sped up, or turned, whatever it was that made them slow down.
5: The hardest step so far. For no good reason. This is the step where I emptied stuff out of my car before I took a short drive, even though I knew I’d have to put it in after the drive because I had to haul it somewhere. You take stuff out because the more stuff you have in your car, the more gas it takes to move your car.
6: The simplest to do, but hardest to remember. I put my seatbelt on before I start the car. Rather than leaving my car running (a.k.a burning gas) while I’m buckling up.
7: Pay attention before you ever start your car. I usually don't remember till after I've already started the car, but, if the car next to me is about to back out then that means I'm sitting there, burning gas, waiting for them to back out and go. So as best I can (when I remember...) I'll hold off starting the car until it looks pretty clear to go.

Above all, drive carefully. That $21.71 is pretty sweet unless it winds up costing you a hospital bill.

That’s all I’ve got so far.
If you know more tricks, let me know.

Reference articles:

Wikicars - Hypermiling
Wayne Gerdes - King of the hypermilers (The article that got me interested in this.)