by Sarah Collins

Created on: May 24, 2008   Last Updated: May 28, 2008

With gas teetering on $4 a gallon, our family is saving a ton of money. Yes, you read that right. In fact, if we weren't so modest we'd probably be rolling around naked in our newfound dough, celebrating the utter joy of a proliferation of common sense. Sadly, it's the kind of transformation that only takes place when a person becomes almost desperate - when the balance of wants and needs tips so far in the direction of need that the wants slide neatly out of the picture, crumbling intangibly onto a pile of discarded plastic $2 tiles that are more likely to be displayed at the Smithsonian than the corner gas station. Nevertheless, it's sad but true: thanks to the price of gas, we are saving a small fortune. Here's how.

My husband's ridiculously large truck was the first victim of the rising cost of fuel. Behemoth and boasting an 8.1 liter gas engine, it guzzled more than $100 a week during his relatively short commute. He replaced it with a rather unimpressive small car, the price tag of which was less two month's worth of gas for its predecessor. I use the word "replaced" loosely, however. The truck still sits in the driveway. The gleaming red and chrome beast towers over the unintentionally two-toned misfit resting in its shadow, but I'm sure that little car is standing as proudly as it can on its sordid, diminutive wheels and with good reason. Boasting a mpg rating second only to a bicycle, that little car is leaving the big boy in the dust.

As for my gas-mediocre minivan, I try to keep it parked more often. You might not think that would be a problem for a stay-at-home mom, but, like most stay-at-home-moms, I don't actually get to stay at home. Sure, I take all of the practical advice, which, for all of the rhetoric, just boils down to one really useful gem: drive less. I'm not sure which economical genius nailed the copyright on that little wonder, but I'm glad that particular piece of advice is making the rounds because most of us common folk are unlikely to have figured it out on our own. I dutifully schedule appointments and run errands in tandem as much as possible. A dozen errands will make for a long day, but I'm practically earning a second income by getting it all done in one trip. It's hard to beat the feeling of going two or three weeks between fill-ups!

Driving less for us means fewer trips to the grocery store, where I could be frequently found with all five kids and two grocery carts looking for the stuff I had forgotten the last time I was there

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