Savin' gas

Like everyone else, we're trying to cut back on gas. Our plan is pretty simple:

- Create a budget, in terms of total miles per week. We're aiming to stay under 100 miles per week (they will 'rollover', so we can save miles for a big trip to visit family). For us, that's around 5 gallons of gas per week, or $18.95 per week in last Sunday's gas prices.

- Remove the back seat. We're getting an extra mile per gallon that way. 18.4 to 19.3 mpg or so.

- Use cruise control when possible. We get about 1/3 extra mpg - so up to 19.6 mpg (highway). This is a minivan, btw.

Longer term, we'll probably try and cut back even more. However, we do need to take the occasional trip to pay homage to the relatives who have helped us so much during the past couple of years (and even before then).

Other ideas that may help us eventually lower our gas budget:

- Getting things delivered. Good ol' CSA's can handle most of our groceries, for example - thanks to the friend who reminded me about the Klesicks'! Who are delivering our produce today *squee*!

- Running all of our errands on one day. We need to get a bit more organized to pull this off well. Also, Sunday is a natural day for this since we need to drive to church anyways - but do we really want to be working on Sundays? I guess it depends on the nature of the errands. A library trip on Sundays would be great!

- When the overpass is completed, we will be walking distance from Silver Lake Park (1 mile). And yes, we know how long 1 mile is when walking with twins - that's how far it was to the affordable grocery store when we didn't have a car.

- Using the electric scooter for errands. Because carrying things in the bottom of a double stroller just isn't that much fun.

We're in an unusual place in that we are far less dependent on our car to begin with than the average family of four. So we don't feel the pinch of rising gas prices the way other people do - we just change the flow of our lives a little and move away from gas. We will probably lose some of that flexibility as our children get older (and, dare I hope, more numerous?), so I'm going to enjoy it while we have it!