Save Money on Gas by Changing Driving Habit?

I have two gas station receipts in my hands: one from last Monday and one yesterday. They are both from the same gas station where I always fill up my car on my way to work every week. On these two receipts, in addition to the ever-increasing gas price, which has gone up from $3.659 per gallon of regular gasoline last week to $3.799, another noticeable difference is the total amount of gas I purchased: last week 12.610 gallons and yesterday 11.678 gallons, about 1 gallon less then a week ago. Since I drive my car almost exclusively to work, the miles I put on the car every week are similar. So where does that 1 gallon reduction come from?

Of the 35 miles drive to work, 20 miles are on a major highway where people usually drive 80 miles/hour. Though it’s not always a smooth ride, especially in the morning rush hour, there is a good 10 to 15 mile stretch where I don’t have to hit the break a lot. Starting the week before, after being reminded by the gas saving tips on The Penny Saved, I began to use cruise control whenever I can, though I didn’t set the speed at 55 mph as suggested by the Consumer Reports. On a good day, cruise control can take over 30 to 35 miles of my 70-mile daily commute. And after the first week of experiment, I already saw the positive result, though I didn’t exactly change my driving habit

While I am willing to use cruise control to save on gas more often, I am not going to try Jesse’s another tip: “Turn that A/C off.” Not just that it’s not comfortable to let the wind blow on my fact at 75 miles/hour speed, rolling down the window could do more than undoing the little gas I saved by using cruise control because of the added load to the car from the wind. That’s one save money tip I won’t do. Another is I don’t buy used electronics, a computer, a digital camera, or whatever it is.

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