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An Unpleasant Surprise:Your Annual Cost of Gas

Do you really know how much you spend on gas over a 12 month period? As the price of gas has grown so has your yearly gas cost. If you do figure it out you may very well be surprised and it won't be a pleasant surprise. Gasoline has become a major piece of your family budget. Do you really know how much you are spending for gas annually? Most drivers know much it costs to fill their car but not many can state with accuracy how much they spend per year.

It is fairly simple to figure out and only takes a few minutes to calculate it. Even so, most drivers don't take the time to work the calculations and determine their annual expense. If they did they might look at economizing their gas usage a little more seriously.

Almost every day, we see the increases to the price of gas. $3.00, $3.19, $3.39 per gallon, even $3.49 and $3.59 per gallon are costs that we have seen this year. Not long ago $3.00 for a gallon of fuel seemed high. Now $3.00 looks like a bargain.

The AAA uses 15,000 miles as an average amount of miles traveled per vehicle. If you travel approximately 15,000 miles each year in a car that gets about 20 miles to the gallon, you will buy approximately 750 gallons of gas per year. At $3.00 per gallon that adds up to $2250.00 per year as the cost for gas.

If you are a two car family averaging 15,000 miles per car you will use 1500 gallons of gas per year. 1500 gallons at $3.00 per gallon equals $4500.00 per year.

At $3.49 per gallon the numbers are considerably higher. If you have one car at 15,000 miles per year you will spend over $2600.00 per year. A two car family would spend over $5200.00 per year. That equates to $437.00 per month. You could easily be spending more for gas than your monthly car payments.

Every time that the price of gas goes up at the fuel pump by 10 cents the total increase for your two car family will be $150.00 per year. When you see the price jump 20 cents in one day, think annually. Realize that the 20 cent increase will cost you $300.00.

Reviewing the yearly cost of your fuel can be depressing. When you consider that you are spending over $5200.00 per year just for gas you cannot help but come to the conclusion that it is time to seriously find ways to lower that cost. When you figure out the 20 cent increase at the pump today is really a cost of $300.00 this year, it provides great motivation to do fix it.

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Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page manual of industry insider information on saving gas and dollars at the pump (beatthegaspump.com). Visit us to learn how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to increase gas mileage. Click here to get your own unique version of this article.

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