Is Gasoline Costing More Than a Mortgage?
So let’s do some figuring:
Let me draw up a scenario about someone’s gas consumption: this person drives about 60 miles a day. He gets about 27 mpg combined with his car. His gas tank holds about 12 gallons. The average price of gas right now is about $4.00 nationwide. So how much does this guy spend each month, just for gasoline?
On a tank of gas, he can expect to go (12 gallons x 27 mpg) about 300 miles (297 actually, but since we are using estimates, a little rounding error will not affect the conclusion that much, especially if the round-off is only 0.010-0.015%). He will then go through a tank of gas in about (300 miles per tank / 60 miles per day) 5 days per tank of gas. Since there are 30 days in a month, he can expect to fill up 6 times a month, and pay (12 x 6 x $4.00) $288.00 a month on gasoline. This is not an unreasonable figure, because realistically, people aren’t going to let the gas go completely dry, and people generally fill up once or twice a week. This averages out to (12 x 6 / 4) 18 gallons a week, or about 2 trips to the pump a week. That isn’t unreasonable.
Now, his wife drives an SUV that gets about 16 mpg, and she drives about 45 miles a day. It has a 15 gallon tank. She can expect to get (15 gallons x 16 mpg) about 240 miles out of a full tank of gas. This equals out to (240 miles per tank / 45 miles per day) 5.33 days per tank. So she will fill up (30 days per month / 5.33 days per tank) 5.625 tanks per month. She is spending about (5.625 tanks per month x 15 gallons per tank x $4.00 per gallon). So she is spending about $340 a month on gasoline.
Between Mr. and Mrs. Dwyer, they are spending ($290 + $340) $630 a month on gasoline alone. That’s a mortgage payment on a house – with taxes and insurance escrowed it is a $75,000 mortgage financed at 6.5% over 30 years, or without escrow, it’s about $100,000 financed at the same rate and period.
People should think about their gas consumption in those terms, but they don’t. They look at it as “I’m dropping $35 into my gas tank” or $50 a fill-up, or $20 every other day. I ask people how often they fill up, and what do they usually spend at the pump: twice a week and $25 each ($400 a month) once a week at $60 ($240), every other day and drop $20 ($300). These are not small numbers, and if you’re taking home $2000 a month and paying $300 a month for gas, that’s 15% of your take-home being fed into your gas tank.
That, to me, is obnoxious.
