How Not to Pay Through the Nose for Fuel

This is a picture we took in May. We loaded up the trunk with "vegetable oil" for our trip from Alabama to Massachusetts. We ended up returning with enough fuel for 3 more weeks of driving around home. Wow!

With the price of fuel being high, we probably saved, excuse the rough numbers,

about 58 gallons at $4/gal equaling around $232.

So, actually, in order to have $232 to spend, we would have had to earn $331 gross.

...and if we had driven a regular car that gets 25 miles to the gallon instead of 50 (our old Nissan which we sold at our garage sale) instead of the salvaged Jetta, it would have cost twice that!

Buy a fuel efficient car!
and then,
Run it on sustainable fuels.

Thoughts...

Today we went on a Solar Home tour in Blountsville, Alabama. Reminded me of the Ecovillage we WOOFed at in New Zealand. It was a beautiful day, the weather was a little on the warm side... The homes were amazing. And so were the people!

Jason and I talked a bunch, especially about our goals in creating our self-sufficient, low-energy-using home and life. We concluded that the best changes that we can make we are already making.

1. Transportation--Jason bikes to work, and I am beginning to bike more to the grocery store (we even bought a used bike trailer). We drive as little as possible in a Jetta diesel on our home-brewed BioDiesel. J says that in transportation we use 1/20 what the avg. American uses! This was the first big change we made in our lifestyle.

2. Food--Buy Local, less meat, less processed foods, and We have a Garden (getting better every year). I buy bulk grains and beans, and love to bake. This is the second biggest imporvement that we made.

3. Housing--We use 1/4 the avg. American in electricity (and half of that is from our hot tub--we're currently considering alternatives), almost 1/8 in gas, and about 1/4 in water (plus we put up 2 homemade rain barrels this summer, which helps a bit, esp. in a draught). We are continuing to try to reduce or energy usage.