You know what I love? Frugal tips that require a one-time commitment.
I’m kind of lazy that way. Who wants to be bothered with changing regular behaviors, right? It’s so much easier just to call your cable company and cancel, or change your cell phone bill.
Unfortunately, some of the best frugal tips out there involve an ongoing commitment to change. Reluctantly, at first, I’ll try them. Most of the time I am pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to change one little habit that saves a bunch of money!
Today’s tip is sort of like that. It’s not hard, by any means, but it’s not really easy, either. It simply takes consistent thought and determination.
But it saves me a ton of money every month!
It’s also a very simple concept: simply cluster your errand running.
What does that mean, exactly?
If you’re urban or suburban, you’ve got it easy! Simply plot out your errand running to keep as many errands as possible in one geographic location.
Clustering your errands means doing as many things at once on the north side of town before running off to the south side of town for the other things you need done that day, rather than racing back and forth between the two (burning up gas the whole time).
Maybe you need to decide if frequenting a particular business is worth it, in light of the gas costs it takes to get there. You might find a comparable business closer to your usual stomping grounds.
On occasion, when dealing with scheduled events, you may find yourself sitting at the train table at Barnes & Noble, burning up time while your kids play with the trains instead of burning up fuel driving all over town. (Can you tell I have Thomas obsessed sons?)
If you’re rural, like me, it gets a tad more complicated. Not only do you need to plan the specific locations in town for your errands, but you also should plan to go to town on a specific day to run all your errands. No more racing off to town every time you run low on some miscellaneous need!
That takes a bit more foresight and planning!
I loved it when Jed had speech therapy in town. Twice a week, I had a fail-proof excuse for driving in to civilization!
Without that excuse, I suddenly had to plan my time and trips more efficiently. If I could manage a single, weekly trip in to town, it saved us a lot of money over the course of the month.
Since any Mama will tell you errand running with toddlers takes twice as long as normal, this was a real challenge! I didn’t always succeed, but I tried very hard.
It doesn’t seem like this could save you a lot of money, but it really does add up.
If you have 6 errands to run, half on one side of town and half on the other, by simply being aware of where you need to be you could save yourself miles worth of gas every time. I don’t think it is exaggerating to say that could be 1-2 gallons of gas per week, depending on your area and geography.
That’s $3-6 per week in fuel savings, minimum! Over a year, you’ll shave $150-300 off your fuel costs.
Not life-changing, by far, but every penny counts sometimes.
(Plus, it’s better for the environment.)
If you’re rural, like me, just omitting one trip to town a week could save even more money. Every single time I turn on my car to drive to town, it will cost me $6.60 in gas just to get to and from. There will be more gas costs involved in the driving around town part – especially if I’m not organized and drive back and forth willy-nilly.
So clustering my errand running into one big errand running day can save me $6.60-$13.20 per week in fuel costs, and clustering my errands in town can save another $3-6 in a week.
Now we’re talking big money!
I can potentially shave almost $1,000 off our annual fuel costs by being organized and purposeful in my errand running.
Such a little thing. Such a minor habit change.
But such returns on the investment!
Remember the mantra: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!
Hope that helps!
