With gas prices bouncing around like pinball and hovering above two dollars in most areas of the country it is important to get the most out of the gas you have.  There are plenty of items out there that claim to drastically improve your gas mileage, but here are a few ways that you can go a little farther without spending more money.

One of the easiest, but somehow the hardest, thing to do is drive slower.  It has been shown that gas mileage tends to drop rapidly once you exceed sixty miles per hour.  In fact, for every five miles per hour over sixty you drive it is like paying roughly twenty-four more cents per gallon.  Converting that into something easier, if your car gets twenty miles to the gallon and you drive eighty miles per hour, for an hour, you just spent just under four dollars more than you would have if you would have gone sixty… and you only saved fifteen minutes!

Another way you can get a few more miles from your car is avoid excessive idling.  You get zero miles per gallon idling, so shut the car off for long stops.  This is especially important if you have a larger car.  Reducing unnecessary weight in the car is another easy way to help out the gas mileage, but this is more important in the smaller cars.  If you have four twenty pound sacks of potatoes in your trunk, you could get one to two percent more miles per gallon if they were out. 

Keeping your car in shape is a great way to improve your gas mileage.  Things like keeping the tires properly inflated, ensuring the air filter is actually clean or putting the manufacturer’s recommended grade of oil in your car are all ways to keep your car running in top shape.  These few things combined can save you about thirty-five cents per gallon. 

The last way to get more out of your gas station isn’t really a way to improve your gas mileage so much as it is a way to simply pay less for gas.  Most gas stations are linked up with some kind of credit card.  These credit cards allow for either cash back or just lower prices on gas.  Most seem to be offering savings of five to ten cents per gallon after an introductory period of saving ten to thirty cents.  This just helps gas cost less, and let’s face it, you were probably going to put that gas on a credit card anyway.