Visiting the gas pump less often

This spring I finally convinced my husband to trade his demanding SUV for a hybrid compact car.

There were a lot of obstacles I needed to overcome: "Every family with kids in USA has at least a SUV or a Minivan, we need it" (we don't need it in Italy and we do perfectly fine). Then "How will I transport big stuff" (to transport big items one or twice a year you can make the store deliver them to you or you can rent a truck for one day). "We need space to make a long travel" (yes we do, but for 1-2 long travels a year we can rent a car).

Finally I won. When we went to the car dealer his last doubt was "Are you sure you have enough space with the kids and their car seats?" I got the car seats out of my car and fit them perfectly in the small hybrid. "And what about the grocery, the trunk is smaller", "Where will you put the bikes?". I took the bikes to the park one or 2 times in 5 years and there are bikes holders you can attach to the car. I never buy more than 10 days of grocery as we eat mainly fresh food anyways.

We will do just fine and the kids will be very proud of us because we are trying to give them a chance to enjoy nature like we did growing up.



I cannot tell you how good you feel when you do not need to fill up the gas tank for 2 weeks, and you bypass the gas pump many more times without stopping. My new hybrid car was suppose to make 42 mpg combining city and highway (40 city, 45 highway) and to my surprise I'm doing 50 mpg. Probably also because I learned a better way to drive on this website http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/drive.shtml.

Not to mention the reduction in air pollution. Every time you stop, the engine turns off automatically, as soon as you lift your foot from the breaks, the engine start again. With other cars whenever you are idling you are consuming gasoline and making 0 mpg while polluting the air.

With my trade our family will consume almost 12 barrels less of petroleum each year with a saving of about 1281$/yr in our budget (plus a possible tax reduction). And finally we will emit about 6.5 less tons of Co2 a year with an additional score of air pollution of 9 (where 10 is the least polluting car).

A car is one of the biggest purchase of a family after a house and also one of the biggest cause of pollution. At http://www.fueleconomy.gov/ there are many information on mpg and CO2 emissions of all brands and models. It is just a matter of choosing the right car for the right main usage that fits your family.