Annual fuel cost per household

[DIRTROAD]

I have kept up with my fuel expenditures for tax purposes since 2005. These figures are for myself and do not include my wife's fuel costs.

Here they are:

2005.......$2808
2006.......$3191
2007.......$3051
2008.......$3167
2009.......$3228
2010.......$5770
2011.......$3800 projected


Last New Years Eve, when the car dealers were making great deals, we traded my wife's sport track for a new Jetta TDI. Her fuel savings over the past year have actually made the payments on the car.

Now, with the purchase of my little VW diesel pickup, I hope to cut my fuel costs in half in 2012. I think I can. To change from 15-17mpg to 43-45mpg, I might even do better than half costs.

 

[DIRTROAD]

Here is a newspaper article that I saved from 2003. AAA was calling 1.63 per gallon price gouging. wow!!

 

[JDgreen227]

Here is a newspaper article that I saved from 2003. AAA was calling 1.63 per gallon price gouging. wow!!

View attachment 242607

OP here...thanks for sharing that tidbit of information. I remember back about 1977-78, we were watching the price per gallon creep up to a dollar, and when it finally rose to that level, it stayed pretty stable for the next 20 years. The good old days!!!

 

[300UGUY]

Right now, my gas is running about 5K per year. Back before I was retired, we were running up 1K+ per month for commuting. And I was driving a car getting about 30 mpg. A 100 miles + per day commute really gets costly.

 

[bearcreek paul]

My 3/4 ton silverado hd gets 10 mpg in the city 14 highway
600.00 per month in gas.
I went out and bought a neon and cut about 400.00 a month by not driving my truck all the time.
The wife's car she doesn't drive much just back and forth to work 120.00 a month.
The sad part was it was cheaper for me to buy a car to drive than drive the one that was paid for!!!

 

[slowzuki]

Hmm, 240$/month in the car, 500$/month in the truck, 1500$/year diesel in the tractors. Yikes. Maybe I'll speed up getting the Sidekick or Geo Metro back on the road to replace the truck.

 

[arrow]

But she would also have a 4 year new vehicle with less mileage. So you need to figure in what the difference in value between the two would be. Of course if she was to buy a hybrid and had the added costs up front of buying one and then the costs of replacing batteries when they die it gets even more complicated.

This value is only applicable if she got rid of the 5 year old car. Other value points to consider that do not weigh in as money but may be even more valuable is the fact that the Frontier is twice the vehicle as the Elantra. Twice in build, heft, traction, visibility and safety. I think I figured she'd save around 100 bucks per month in gas between the two. That is just not worth it in my mind and try and find a 4wd truck that gets as high 24 mpg on the hwy. She's a thirty something child that feels she is a lot smarter than me. The older she gets I hope the smarter I get. I dunno, I guess just a different set of values between father and daughter.

 

[DIRTROAD]

Here are a couple of charts showing historical crude oil prices. Interesting to see the movements.

 

[Combustix]

Diesel has gotten so bad that I only pull the 350 out for hauling and towing chores. Bought my mom's 97 corolla, since she can no longer drive. at 30 mpg it has saved me quite a bit. the odessy gets 22 okay but need to ge the wife to drive the corolla more.

 

[JimRB]

About $3,300 of diesel for 2011. That does not include a few 6 gallon jugs of diesel for the tractor. 5,000 miles of truck which is a few thousand more than previous years and 32,000 miles on the Jetta TDI.