How much have you been spending on Auto Fuel Lately?

We have an older minivan and a new hybrid SUV for 2 drivers. I love to drive the hybrid SUV whenever I need to drive somewhere. Other than one weekend trip out of town, we average less than $10 per month, driving mostly to community swimming pool, Costco or Kroger.
 
DW & I spent $101/mo on gasoline in 2019. Apr-Jul 2020 we've average $53/mo. Sounds like we go out more than many here, though we wear masks, maintain distance, etc.
 
With 3 cars, year to date we are down 26% compared to he same period last year. Spending this year has averaged $98/month. The biggest factor is my golfing. The course I have joined and play at least 3 times/week is a 40 mile round trip drive.

During the 3 "high lockdown" months of March-May in our area, our gas spending was down by 2/3 compared to 2019, to $48/month.
 
Man! Either gas is a WHOLE lot cheaper than where I am in California, or many here need to question the need to own their own car. I have a new Subaru Ascent bought in November with payments of $750 a month (zero interest 48 months) and insurance about $120 a month. If I only spent $10 to $30 a month, that would be roughly 3 to 10 gallons a month at current local prices. 23mpg, I'd be driving 70 to 230 miles a month. Total cost to drive per mile would be between $3.82 and $12.57 per mile.

I actually drive about 2,000 miles a month. Price per mile works out to be about 56 cents a mile.
 
KarlH said:
EVs. No gas. No Oil. I think I filled the can for the lawn mower in the spring if that counts. And our solar array has covered 100% of the electric for both cars (average 130 miles per weekday since march).
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I've spent zero on a solar array or EV's & my gas is around $30/mo.
 
skipro33 said:
Man! Either gas is a WHOLE lot cheaper than where I am in California, or many here need to question the need to own their own car. I have a new Subaru Ascent bought in November with payments of $750 a month (zero interest 48 months) and insurance about $120 a month. If I only spent $10 to $30 a month, that would be roughly 3 to 10 gallons a month at current local prices. 23mpg, I'd be driving 70 to 230 miles a month. Total cost to drive per mile would be between $3.82 and $12.57 per mile.

I actually drive about 2,000 miles a month. Price per mile works out to be about 56 cents a mile.
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I am a Costco member and that is where I fill up. The last time I went to the local Costco the cost was $2.05 a gallon. The lowest price during our lockdown was $1.59/gallon. Our cars get, respectively, 27 (SUV), 31 (Sedan), and 33 (compact) miles per gallon. Very little stop and go/heavy traffic in our area.
 
skipro33 said:
Man! Either gas is a WHOLE lot cheaper than where I am in California, or many here need to question the need to own their own car. I have a new Subaru Ascent bought in November with payments of $750 a month (zero interest 48 months) and insurance about $120 a month. If I only spent $10 to $30 a month, that would be roughly 3 to 10 gallons a month at current local prices. 23mpg, I'd be driving 70 to 230 miles a month. Total cost to drive per mile would be between $3.82 and $12.57 per mile.

I actually drive about 2,000 miles a month. Price per mile works out to be about 56 cents a mile.
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Right now our Costco is $2.16/gal for Regular. Other gas stations near me are $2.29 -> $2.39

Gas used to be below $2 a couple of months ago.

I barely drive these days as nowhere to go.
 
We spent $750 in 2019 from April through August on gas. This year over the same period we have spent $250, so two thirds less.

In fact all of our spending is way down. We've decided to spend some of the savings on a whole house standby generator which should come in around $10K.
 
pb4uski said:
In theory perhaps but not in my experience. My mom's 2007 CR-V sits in a garage for 6 months or more each winter and starts and runs fine each spring without any additive/stabilizer at all. I've been doing that for 15 years and never a problem.

All I do is to disconnect the negative terminal on the battery in the fall and reconnect it in the spring. Starts right up. Let it idle for 20 minutes or so to charge up the battery while I'm topping off the air in the tires with my little 12v air compressor.

Ditto for my truck that now sits in the garage for 6 months.
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+1
I believe much of these historic gasoline problems are long gone now due to the usage of much cleaner gasoline. In the old days, "Regular" gasoline had lots of reactive sulfides and dienes present which have now been mostly removed. However, I'm not sure if the old "Conventional Gasoline" is still allowed in non-metro areas like Grand Junction, so I still use "Premium" for the mowers and weed whip, etc which will have gasoline sitting in them throughout the winter months.

I'm also not sure about the water in gasoline problems that are routinely discussed with sitting vehicles for long periods. For example, with ethanol now present in most gasolines, getting a separate water phase in your gas tank seems very unlikely. The fact that HEET (an alcohol) is still available and sold when the gasoline already has 10% ethanol within it simply amazes me.
 
I cannot believe how low Petrol prices are in NE FLA. I paid $1.82 (Reg.) yesterday to top up my tank in anticipation of Laura damaging refineries and giving the oil industry an excuse to put prices up.
 
I don't track it but with monthly trips to my beach condo(185 miles 1 way) it's more than many here. I paid $1.69/gl yesterday.
 
With retirement, the 2nd car is hardly used at all. Will probably sell it next year. So gas for that jalopy died off to almost zilch. The other car is driven about 10 miles each day.

Spending on auto fuel is down about 75% deom a year ago.
 
My gasoline bills are down a lot from pre Covid but I'm still spending about $300 a month. It breaks down to ~$50 on diesel, ~$150 on regular gas and ~$100 on premium. I hope to get back to normal travel later this year which should bump me up to $500+ a month at current prices.
 
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Mark1 said:
...
I'm also not sure about the water in gasoline problems that are routinely discussed with sitting vehicles for long periods. For example, with ethanol now present in most gasolines, getting a separate water phase in your gas tank seems very unlikely. The fact that HEET (an alcohol) is still available and sold when the gasoline already has 10% ethanol within it simply amazes me.
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You reminded me, how I used to use HEET, then being cheap I bought a gallon of methanol and would refill my HEET bottles to carry in the trunk.

Last year I threw out a couple of HEET bottles I found in the garage.
 
It's easy for me to get numbers from Quicken.

2020 gasoline cost YTD: $198 or $25/month

2019: $719, including gas for a 6-week auto trip around Spain

2018: $4016, including gas for a 10,000-mile RV trip to Alaska
 
USAA just notified me of another special dividend on my auto insurance, the third one since April. Adding them all up comes to just over 14% of my six-month premium, so fairly significant. I think that says everything about how people have been driving much less this year.
 
Averaging $18 a month since March. But that including putting gas in March in our second car (Ford Explorer that we rarely drive. We bought gas for it only 1 time last year. Since we drive it so little we actually sold it and went to 1 car (Volvo XC60) a few weeks ago. The Explorer had almost a full tank when we sold it.

Even though we are both retired in 2019 we still average $76 a month. Now, we just rarely go out except when we need something or just an occasional drive since we don't go anywhere.
 
~$125 a month. Gas is one thing I don't worry about spending money on. I Know the day will come when I can't go and do the things I do now, so I go and blow money on gas.

There was a time I didn't spend much on fuel but now I really don't care what it costs I buy gas.
 
street said:
~$125 a month. Gas is one thing I don't worry about spending money on. I Know the day will come when I can't go and do the things I do now, so I go and blow money on gas.

There was a time I didn't spend much on fuel but now I really don't care what it costs I buy gas.
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The theme of the thread is how little people spend on gasoline these days due to Covid. Indeed, I have no place to go, while my original plan for this summer was to spend many $K for a long RV trip to the Great Lakes region.
 
2019 spent $75.19 per month.
2020 averaging $73.66 per month.

2020 average would be much lower except that we were gone traveling in February which brings this years average up. In fact I haven't bought any gas yet this month.
 
braumeister said:
USAA just notified me of another special dividend on my auto insurance, the third one since April. Adding them all up comes to just over 14% of my six-month premium, so fairly significant. I think that says everything about how people have been driving much less this year.
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I finally got the dividend on my State Farm auto insurance policy. They had announced it months ago, just after I paid my last premium. But in addition to that, my regular premium dropped 14%. Taken together, my next 6-month premium dropped by 25%.
 
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