Save Money While Driving, For a Better Car

If you’re a car owner you can probably vouch for the fact that vehicle ownership can be an expensive thing to manage. This can be especially challenging for younger drivers who face higher insurance premiums and may struggle to afford a newer car in the first place.

There are ways for you to save when you’re driving, though, ranging from how you drive to general maintenance. Then, with clever investments using these savings, you can help to further prolong the lifespan of your car and limit the chance of you having to fork out for repairs. To find out how you can do this, read on to discover our suggestions.

Driving Style

The way that you drive your car has a significant bearing on how much you end up spending on it. This is because an aggressive driving style not only uses up more fuel, but it also can cause general wear and tear to happen much quicker. Your car’s tires and engine components can become damaged leading to other more serious problems that you’ll have to pay for.

To combat this, you might want to try a different approach to driving to prolong the lifespan of these parts and indeed provide higher mpg:

• Keep your car revs between 1500-2000 when accelerating to change gear
• Have your tires properly pumped up before each journey
• Make sure your fluid levels are regularly topped up to improve efficiency
• Put on the gas gradually, do not accelerate too fast. It’s ok if the car in the next lane overtakes you
• Avoid driving during rush hours, more signals you run into, more gasoline will be consumed
• Combine work and finish within a single trip, this will avoid multiple trips
• Do not over speed, not only you can save on traffic ticket cost, but also your fuel economy improves. Keep in mind a traffic ticket will definitely increase your auto insurance premium. The increase can be felt as soon as the next policy renewal

Smart Investments

With the right driving style over time, you might find your bank balance looking a little healthier each month. When you’ve saved enough you might then want to invest in the following improvements to your car to again improve your mileage, economy, and longevity.

• New spark plugs can make your engine more efficient as they will fire quicker and more effectively than your old ones
• Top range tires from a named supplier will last longer and improve mpg
• New air filters again improve performance by bringing cleaner air, easier to process into the engine
• Using only top quality oil and engine fluids increases engine efficiency and longer engine life

Quick fixes

There are some quick and easy fixes that you can try. I’d say these are easiest ways to get biggest saves

• Have your tire properly inflated, at least once every month you should check air pressure
• Take off excessive load from your car. Check your trunk, remove things are you don’t use. Most of the items in your trunk can be kept in your garage.
• Use as little A/C as possible, this will make your engine consume less fuel
• Drive within the speed limit. Over speeding cost more fuel consumption. Faster you go more fuel will be consumed per mile.

Now let’s say you save some money by following the steps above. What do you want to do next?

One way is to use up the money towards some of the financial goals. Be it a debt repayment, or saving up for a big purchase, or even for your next vacation. You can use up the saving as you wish. But, unless you set the money aside, you’ll never feel like saving money on gas.

So, the better way forward is to measure up your monthly expenditure on gas. If you pay with a card at the gas station, it’s easy to find out. Check for last few months of expenses. And after making the changes in your driving, changing minor thing sin your car, continue to measure your gas cost every month.

Let’s say your average cost of gas was $200 per month before the driving changes and $180 per month after your effort to save money on gas. You can use that $20 to one of your favorite ways. Although a car is not an investment, as it’s a depreciating asset, you can still save up for a fuel-efficient and newer car. It’ll take some time, though. 

Bu whatever it takes, do measure up the money you save, else the motivation gets lost in no time. You will find yourself speeding with a deflated tire again, trying to overtake other cars, or driving over the speed limit.

With all this in mind then, all there’s left for you to do is give some of these methods a try, and, you’ll one day start to enjoy getting more out of your car at a lower overall cost.