With gas prices going up and down like a yo-yo these days, and all the driving I’m now doing, I have lots of time to ponder gas strategies. Most people think about gas saving strategies, but I am actually talking about car fueling strategies. What’s the difference you ask? Well, let me tell you.

Let’s start with a few questions:

When do you fuel up your vehicle?When it’s almost empty?When it’s half full?When the price of gas hits a magic price?

I’ve been pondering this question for the last several weeks, as I come to the end of Week 4 at the new job. I had initially forecast one extra tank of gas per month even though I’m driving a lot more now. The biggest reason was that even though I am driving further, it’s all highway driving, which is significantly easier on the gas tank since I can just put the cruise control on and drive basically without pedals. My original plan was simply to fill up the car:

1. When I needed to.
2. AND on every weekend, regardless of how empty (or full) the tank was.

I’ve been sticking to this plan pretty well so far, managing to get 5 trips (that’s 2 and a half days) on one tank of gas. But this week the price of gas has just yo-yoed something fierce, and after filling up on Tuesday, I just had to fill up again on Wednesday, because gas actually went down almost to $1.20/L. We haven’t seen that in quite a while. I almost filled up again today, because I was at half, and the prices was at $1.23/L, but I didn’t. Want to know why? Because our “gas price watchdog”, also known as a Minister of Parliament for one of the Toronto suburbs, announced tonight that gas was going to go up 13 cents tonight. So everybody and their dog was filling up their cars, trucks, and anything that would hold gas. You should have seen the lineups! I hate it when this “watchdog” does this. Drives me bonkers. But I digress.

This post is supposed to be about car fueling strategies, so here are mine:

1. Fill up every weekend, regardless of price. Yes, this might hurt occasionally, but I’d rather not be stopping at the gas station every day just to save 5 cents per fill.
2. Drive a tad slower on the highway to save on how much gas I use on the actual trip. This seems to be helping a bit, so I might slow down even more, just to see if it makes any more of a difference. This might seem more like a gas saving strategy rather than a car fueling strategy, but in my opinion, it’s just a matter of perspective.
3. Fill up when gas gets close to $1.20/L, regardless of how much I need. Let’s see how long this one stays on the list.

And there you have it, my car fueling strategies. Nothing too strange or new, but things I’m going to try to see if it makes a difference.

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