How to Save Money on Gas

By: Karla Wheaton

 

With the current tensions in Libya and other countries in the Middle East, the price of gasoline keeps going up and up. Gas prices near where I live are around $3.50 to $3.60 a gallon. This also comes at a time when many families’ budgets are already stretched to the max.

I don’t know about you, but this situation has me thinking. What can you do to save money on gas while also using less fuel to help the environment?

What can you do to your vehicle?

• Minimize the weight you are carrying around in your car by cleaning out the extra clothes, kids’ sports equipment, and bags of items to donate to charity from your trunk.
• Be sure to check your tire pressure regularly. Under-inflated tires can increase your fuel cost up to thirteen percent.
• Take care of your car by keeping up with regular maintenance and changing your spark-plugs.
• Use regular gas instead of premium. There is little difference in energy content between the two, but the premium can cost twenty to forty cents more per gallon.
• Don’t top off your gas tank at the pump and make sure your fuel tank cap is on tight and working right.
• Keep your luggage inside your car if possible. Using a loaded roof rack increases fuel consumption.

What can you do while driving?

• Drive as if you don’t have brakes and be gentle with the accelerator.
• Avoid idling. If you are waiting for someone and you’ll be parked for ten seconds or longer, turn off your car’s engine. Turning off the engine and then restarting it uses less fuel than idling for any time more than ten seconds. For every two minutes a car is idling, it uses about the same amount of fuel it takes to go about one mile. Idling is also linked to increases in asthma, allergies, heart and lung disease, and cancer.
• Go slower up hills and faster down them.
• Park in the first spot you find rather than driving around for another one. Also park for easy and direct departure.
• In a hybrid, pulse and glide. How does it work? Say you are on a road and want to go sixty miles per hour. Instead of driving along at a steady sixty, you accelerate to seventy (that’s the pulse), and then coast in neutral with the engine off down to fifty (that’s the glide.) This technique can save gas with a hybrid, because you are basically using no gas at all during the glide.
• During the colder months, “warming up your car” really only needs to take thirty seconds rather than ten minutes.
• Don’t drive too fast. One of the biggest gasoline wasters is excess speed. Gas mileage usually decreases rapidly with speeds above fifty-five miles per hour.
• Use the air conditioner less. It can increase fuel costs from thirteen percent up to twenty-one percent.

What sort of lifestyle changes can you make?

• Limit your driving. Find more fun things to do closer to home. Use public transportation like the bus or a train when you can. Carpool, walk, or take your bike. Work at home if your boss will let you.
• Find the best gas prices. The website GasBuddy.com will let you know what the prices are by town or city and then by gas station in your state. Fuel prices can vary ten percent within a few blocks.
• If you have one close by, buy your gas from a discount store like Sam’s or Costco. It doesn’t make much sense to drive too far out of your way to get to one of these places, though.
• Limit your purchases when prices are high. Only fill your tank up halfway when they are higher and completely fill your tank when they are lower.
• Buy a different vehicle – a diesel, a hybrid, a smaller car, a motorcycle, a scooter, or alternative fuel cars such as those that run on biodiesel, compressed natural gas, electricity, or ethanol.
• Instead of having two cars in your family, share one. My husband and I shared one car while we were saving up to buy our home. We saved money by paying less for insurance, car maintenance costs, taxes, and inspection fees.

Some of these tips may seem obvious, but let them serve as good reminders. Even if we can’t run out and buy a hybrid, at least there are some things that we all can do to save some money and help save the planet.

One last thought – in Europe they pay 5.64 Euro or about $7.85 per gallon for gas. Why so much? It is mostly because of taxes. Is that crazy or just really smart? Look how many more people walk, bike, or use public transportation in European countries than in the United States.

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[Photo Credit: TahoeSunsets]

How to Adopt a Baby

By: Katherine Malmo

1. Talk to friends and friends of friends about their experiences.

2. Try not to get lost driving around foreign neighborhoods looking for a community center that will host the Journeys of the Love, Hope, Heart, Blessed-Child’s Dream of the Christ’s Open Adoption agency meeting.

3. Ask the social workers what programs/countries will let you adopt if you are single, over 40, in a same-sex relationship, and/or a cancer survivor.

4. Choose the agency that can answer your question.

5. Get fingerprinted, background-checked, dig up the value of your house, find pay stubs, photocopy bank statements, get friends to write references, find your dog’s vaccination records, have the pet store where you purchased your fish sign an affidavit of its health, make a list of every illness you’ve ever had, dig up the name of your third grade teacher who could verify that indeed your favorite color was lavender, make a list of your stuffed animals and their names and how well you took care of each and every one of them, and promise, that if they could talk, they would guarantee that, if given the opportunity, you’d be the bestest mother ever.

6. Ponder questions for your autobiography like, how do your parents feel about education? Resist the urge to say they hate education and schools and especially do-gooder teachers, but that they also hate puppies and kittens, rainbows and balloons. Do not say your parents are puppy-kicking balloon-poppers.

7. Invite a social worker into your home and show her that you keep your medicines locked away, your fire ladder in the baby-to-be’s room, and your floors shiny-clean.

8. Wait.

9. Wait.

10. Wait.

11. Try not to punch the social worker who says you seem really anxious about this when you’re waiting to hear from a prospective birth mother.

12. Make a spreadsheet with everything an infant could possibly need –from diaper wipes and burp cloths to gliders and strollers –while you wait.

13. Decide you’re sick of waiting and start researching other options/agencies. Find the notes from friends of friends you talked to ages ago.

14. Resist the urge to get a tiny dog or a gerbil or any other small animal that you can carry in your purse. Resist. A Chihuahua is, in fact, not a baby.

15. Find an independent facilitator. Send her your homestudy.

16. Don’t let her pressure you into a situation that isn’t right for you.

17. When she yells at you, you may want to tell her she should be ashamed. You may stop talking to her.

18. Hand the phone to your spouse when she calls a week later. She’ll tell him your baby has been born.

19. Leave a bag of dog food on the back porch and, on the way to the airport, ask your parents to come get your dog.

20. When you meet your baby, she may be wrapped in a purple hand-knit blanket and have an orange bow stuck to her head with a dab of maple syrup.

21. Spend 3 weeks in a rented condo/bachelor pad.

22. You may dream that you can’t find your baby buried in your bedding and you may wake up pulling the sheets off your bed panicked. Totally normal.

23. Go ahead and check your three giant bags and a boxed-up pack-n-play on your way home. The airline will look the other way.

24. When you get home, open your doors to your friends and family. Let them love her. Take their pictures with her. Let them celebrate. They’ve been waiting too.

25. You may run into her room while she’s sleeping to be sure she’s still breathing. Also totally normal.

26. Dress her in tiny hand-knit socks and hats. Take pictures.

27. Put her in a swing. Take a picture. Watch her crawl. Take a picture. Put a ponytail in her hair. Take a picture. Put her in the snow. Put her in the water. Lean her against the dog. Take pictures, pictures, pictures.

28. Go to the courthouse and have your picture taken with the judge who finalizes the adoption.

29. Put all these pictures in a book. Read her story to her. When she’s two she may ask who the man is in the picture at the courthouse. You’ll tell her he’s the man who said you’d be her mommy forever and ever. She just might kiss him and say Thank you!

30. You may be exhausted and, probably, very grateful you didn’t punch anyone in the face, call your parents puppy-kicking balloon-poppers, or get a tiny dog or gerbil or other small animal that could fit in your purse.

Katherine Malmo is the Norwegian-American mother of an African-American three year old who loves Curious George, Mavis Staples and cookies; and the wife of an extremely likeable software engineer with a fondness for roadside furniture and a habit of whistling in his sleep. In 2005 Katherine was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer and spent a year in treatment. These days she is cancer-free and blogs about her family, adoption, race, health and living a low-toxin life at HystericalMommyNetwork. Her book, Who in This Room, will be available in October 2011.

Modern Living: Simply Sorted

By: Shira Gill, Personal Organizer

Modern living is hectic enough as it is, but once you introduce kids into the equation, keeping your life simple and organized can seem like an impossible dream.

As a new mom and a professional organizer, I have learned that sometimes it only takes a few minutes to see big results. Conquering the clutter will restore your energy and bring calm and balance into your life. Here are a few simple tips to get you started:

1. Refrigerator makeover!

First, toss anything that has expired or gone bad. Next, ditch the junk and replace it with healthful alternatives. Skip the soda and make spa water by filling a few glass pitchers with water, lemon and cucumber slices or fresh herbs. Instead of buying TV dinners loaded with salt and preservatives, try making a lasagna or turkey meatloaf that can be frozen in individual portions. Store nuts, veggies and fresh fruit in grab-and-go containers so you’ll have healthy snacks when you’re on the move.

2. Ready, Set…Clean!

Feeling short on time? Get the whole family involved by challenging them to a clean up race. Set your kitchen timer for 10 minutes and use the time to toss stray trash and return misplaced items to their correct homes. When the timer “dings!” everyone will be shocked at how much they were able to accomplish in such a short time. Celebrate by playing a game or indulging in a yummy dessert.

3. Mail Overload!

Use a standing file with dividers to store all incoming mail. Designate one day a week for bill paying, scheduling, and responding to invites and you’ll never have to worry about overdue notices or overlooked obligations. Recycle the trash and junk mail right away. You can also reduce junk mail by canceling unwanted catalogs and opting out of unsolicited commercial mail for five years by contacting The Direct Marketing Association. To register with DMA’s Mail Preference Service, go to http://www.dmachoice.org

4. Important Everything Holder

Ever panicked because you can’t remember where you stowed the key to your safe deposit box or your child’s birth certificate? Take the guesswork out by creating an “important everything holder” and storing it in a safe place in your home. Mine has everything from family passports to treasured photos and my original wedding DVD. Any time I need to locate one of these crucial items, I know just where to find it.

5. Bedroom Bliss

Need a vacation but short on time and/or funds? Splurge on some fresh flowers and a scented candle and make the bed with your best set of sheets. Take a few minutes to straighten up, leaving the floors and surfaces as minimal as possible. Put on your favorite CD or iPOD play list. Your bedroom will be transformed into a chic retreat in no time. Now you just have to promise to relax!

Shira Gill is the founder of Simply Sorted and Simply Sorted Baby and keeps things tidy in the SF Bay Area. For information and to sign up for her free monthly newsletter please visit www.shiragill.com