We have two cars: my husband’s car that gets 30 miles per gallon and my minivan that gets 20 miles per gallon. Our kids’ three car seats live in the van most of the time, but to save money we move them into the car on Saturday nights in preparation for Sunday morning when we drive just over 20 miles to get to church (remember how we live in the boonies?).
Van: 40 miles @ 20 mpg = 2 gallons of gas @ $4/gallon = $8.00 roundtrip to church
Car: 40 miles @ 30 mpg = 1.3 gallons of gas @ $4/gallon =$5.20 roundtrip to church
We save $2.80 each Sunday by taking his car, which doesn’t seem like much, but after 52 weeks, we save $145. We actually save much more than this because when we have family outings on Saturday (or any time we’re all going together as a family), we do the car seat swap then, so we are saving gas on all our weekend travels.
When we have another child, this arrangement won’t work anymore, so we are taking full advantage of saving money (you know, to go toward our big fat goal) by squeezing into the more fuel efficient vehicle while we can.
Does fuel efficiency affect which car you drive away in?
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Very smart! Our vehicles get about the same mileage but we are blessed that we live within walking distance of church so it’s a very frugal Sunday morning for us!
Walking distance?! That’s wonderful! Saving money and getting exercise– perfect!
I love that you do the car seat switch. Unfortunately with 7 in our family, we’re not able to do the switch. However, if I can, I will take my dh’s car for errands instead of mine. I drive a mini van, and he drives a Saturn Astra which gets much better gas mileage.
I’d love for you to share your tip with my readers on Fabulously Frugal Thursday!
We’re taking advantage of this while we all still fit in the car. It’s good that you can take the car on errands at least!
Yep, we do the carseat switch too! Although I think it’s easier for us since we only have two kids so far, and we don’t actually switch that often since our car gets 45 mpg, and our truck only gets somewhere in the high teens, I have a lot of motivation to just try to stay home when the car isn’t available. 🙂
That’s a good incentive for staying home! 🙂 And staying home will save you more money than just gas! Good for you!
We have four kids, so this wouldn’t work for us exactly, but we try to take my husbands car (35 mpg) when we go run errands if we only have 3 kids. We actually bought extra seats to keep in his car or for when grandparents take the kids, so it was a bit of an investment, but not too bad.