The Cost of Gas Or What Price Freedom
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Like the rest of us, you have obviously noticed the price of gas has risen sharply in the past few weeks. If you are like me your instant reaction is to think of ways to cut your fuel consumption. While conservation is a good thing to do, we often overestimate the true impact of gas prices.
Consider for a minute a motorhome and many will think Oh my God! How can you afford to drive one! This reaction is typical, yet it may be wrong. Think about how you use a motorhome and you may be pleasantly surprised. If you are a person who take their motorhome out every weekend all summer to you favorite destination you may be surprised at how few miles you actually put on the motorhome. For example, if your destination is 100 miles away and you travel for 15 weekends over the summer you will put (100 x 2 x 15) only 3000 miles on your motorhome. This cost increase is only $31.25 per trip and only $468.75 for the year (based on 8 miles per gallon, $2.25/gal last year and $3.50/gal this year - actual costs may be less). Are you willing to give up the freedom, enjoyment and comfort you have in owning a motorhome for $468.75 a year? I mean think about it. $468.75 is only $1.28 a day. To say it in another way, it is less than a single soda or water from a vending machine, or a king sized candy bar, or 5 cigarettes, or ½ the cost of a cup of cappuccino a day. Your right foot also controls your mileage more than you think. While I cannot point to any specific study, I will use D.A. here at 2RVGuys.com. D.A. delivered a diesel motorhome (Monaco Knight)a from New York to a customer in Florida and by driving 50 with the cruise control set he got 14.9 MPG and on the return trip he got 14.2 with the customers old gas motorhome ( a Newmar product). As you can see, the speed you drive can greatly affect the mileage. In the above example this would actually save you money even with the price increase over what you may be doing today, i.e. if you drive 3500 miles per year averaging 8 MPG at $2.25 per gallon you will spend $984.38 on gas, assuming you get the same gas mileage increase as D.A. by driving 50 you would spend only $822.15 on gas at $3.50 per gallon! The following graphs show two (2) samples, one driving 3500 miles per year and the other showing 5,000 miles per year. As you can see, there is a cost increase, but put into the balance of things on whole, is it worth you not enjoying life?
Rich
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