4 gas-saving 'tips' that don't work

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Advice such as buying gasoline in the cool of the morning or leaving the tailgate down has been tried -- with disappointing results. 

There are a lot of smart ways to save on gas. For instance, you can use a website such as GasBuddy to find cheaper gas stations in your area, buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle or drive less aggressively so your car uses less gas. 

These are all proven methods for reducing how much you need to budget for gas, but there are other widely used methods that don't pass the smell test. Here are a few. 

Buy gas early in the morning.

Gasoline is denser at colder temperatures, so the theory here is that if you fill up early in the morning while it's still cool out, you'll get more bang for your buck -- a gallon of gas bought cold will expand to be a little more than a gallon when it gets warmer. Gas at gas stations is stored in underground tanks, where the temperature varies a lot less than it does on the surface. As such, there's going to be little to no perceptible difference in the density of the gasoline whether you buy it in the morning or at night. 

With that said, it still might be worth it to fill up in the morning because, given how quickly gas prices have been rising, you might find that the price has gone up by a few cents by the time you get back to the station that evening.

Over inflate your tires. 

Yes, it's true under inflated tires lead to decreased mileage, so you should make sure your tires are properly inflated for fuel efficiency and safety reasons. But some people have taken that to the logical extreme by inflating their tires beyond the recommended pressure, the theory being that an overinflated tire will have a smaller contact patch with the pavement and thus less resistance. Alas, it turns out that's not really the case: Popular Mechanics tested this one out and found almost no difference in gas mileage between 32 psi inflation and 45 psi. 

Turn off the air conditioning and lower the windows. 

The theory here is that air conditioning draws energy from the engine, and that lowering the windows reduces drag. Thus, on a warm day you should turn off the air conditioning and lower the windows to boost your gas mileage. Unfortunately, there appears to be little truth to this method: Edmunds tested it back in 2005 and found that the mileage was the same no matter which method they used to cool themselves. If it's hot out, don't hesitate to blast the A/C. 

Leave your tailgate down. 

Many pickup truck drivers will leave the tailgate down, the idea being that having it up will "catch" the air flowing over the truck, acting as a sail that increases drag and makes you burn more gas. But the Discovery Channel's hit show "MythBusters" tested this one and then retested it and found that fuel efficiency was actually a little better with the tailgate up. That's right, keeping your tailgate open actually made things worse, and putting a cover on the pickup truck's bed had no real impact on fuel efficiency.

25 Ways to Waste Your Money

Has your budget sprung a leak?

Nearly everyone has spending holes. And as with other kinds of leaks, you may have hardly noticed them. But those small drips can quickly add up to big bucks. The trick is to find the holes and plug them so you can keep more money in your pocket. That extra cash could be the ticket to finally being able to save, invest, or break your cycle of living from paycheck to paycheck.

Here are 25 common ways people waste money. See if any of these sound familiar, then look for ways to plug your own leaks:

1. Carrying a balance. Debt is a shackle that holds you back. For instance, if you have a $1,000 balance on a credit card that charges an 18% rate, you blow $180 every year on interest. Get in the habit of paying off your balance in full each month.

2. Overspending on gas and oil for your car. There's no need to spring for premium fuel if the manufacturer says regular is just fine. You should also check to make sure your tires are optimally inflated to get the best gas mileage. And are you still paying for an oil change every 3,000 miles? Many models nowadays can last 5,000 to 7,000 miles between changes, and some even have built-in sensors to tell you when it's time to change the oil. Check your manual to find the best time for your car's routine maintenance.

3. Keeping unhealthy habits. Smoking costs a lot more than just what you pay for a pack of cigarettes. It significantly increases the cost of life and health insurance. And you'll pay more for homeowners and auto insurance. Add in various other expenses, and the true cost of smoking adds up dramatically over a lifetime -- $86,000 for a 24-year-old woman over a lifetime and $183,000 for a 24-year-old man over a lifetime, according to "The Price of Smoking" (The MIT Press).

Another habit to quit: indoor tanning. There is now a 10% tax on indoor tanning services. As with cigarettes, the true cost of tanning -- which the World Health Organization lists among the worst-known carcinogens -- is higher than just the price you pay each time you go to the salon.

4. Using a cell phone that doesn't fit. How many people do you know who have spent hundreds of dollars on fancy phones, and then pay hundreds of dollars every month for the privilege of using them? Your phone is not a status symbol. It is a way to communicate. Many people pay too much for cell phone contracts and don't use all their minutes. Go to BillShrink.com or Validas.com to evaluate your usage and see if you can find a plan that fits you better. Or consider a prepaid cell phone. Compare rates at MyRatePlan.com.

5. Buying brand-name instead of generic. From groceries to clothing to prescription drugs, you could save money by choosing the off-brand over the fancy label. And in many cases, you won't sacrifice much in quality. Clever advertising and fancy packaging don't make brand-name products better than lesser-known brands

See 20 more money savings tips:  http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/112202/25-ways-to-waste-your-money?mod=bb-budgeting

MotorSilk® will boost your MPG by 10 to 20%

Every resident of every subdivision is facing this problem.

Our country has been put in a terrible situation by the lack of foresight and inaction by our leaders for the past 30 years. Oil has, and will continue to fuel the world economy. Alternative energy sources are not yet available to replace this precious commodity nor will they be for the next five years or so.

One thing is for sure, we need our cars and truck. We need to live our lives, we need our cars to get to work, transport our children to and from school, sports and all the other demands that require us to drive our cars. We need our trucks to supply our services and deliver our products to the consumer. That’s how we make our living.

Until recently not many people had heard of Motor Silk because the parent company had been dealing primarily with very large customers. They sold to the DOT of entire states, the United States military and major corporations throughout the world. Also the consumer till now has not been actively looking for such a product, since the return on an investment of $80 to install the system for the average driver at $1.75 per gallon was about 6 months and it cost under $25 to fill up most cars’ gas tanks. But clearly things have changed. At $4.00+ per gallon for gas and over $5.00 per gallon for diesel, Motor Silk is now very cost effective for our personal vehicles and for entire fleets of cars and trucks.

But there is more to this product than just the savings in fuel cost. The Motor Silk® System also produces these benefits:

• Friction in the engine and transmission is reduced by 80%
• Wear is reduced by 90%
• Horsepower is increased 6-8%
• Engine life is extended up to 2-3 times
• Emissions are reduced up to 50%
• It displaces all surface contamination (carbon, corrosion etc)
• It restores efficiency in high mileage vehicles
• It reduces gasoline or diesel fuel and oil costs up to 20%
• Engines and Transmissions run much smoother

For more information visit http://www.savemefuelnow.org/ and check out the site’s FAQ section.

The company’s Saint Louis area representative, Tony Niskanen, would be happy to talk with you about Motor Silk products and your personal or fleet needs. He can be reached at (314) 352-6300 or by email at ktenergy@charter.net.

What If Gas Costs $10 A Gallon?

Forget pizza delivery. And cheap airfares. And bottled water. In fact, forget a way of life that looks much like today's. But would that be so bad?

Here are some likely effects:

>> Consumer spending on eating out, clothing, electronics, vacations and other little luxuries would fall sharply. A Nielsen study found that even at recent gas prices, 41% of consumers were eating out less. In total, 18% of those surveyed were cutting spending to a "great degree." That would bruise companies such as Applebee's, Macy's, Gap, Best Buy and others. But discount retailers, particularly those selling food and gas, could do relatively well. Think Costco, Wal-Mart and McDonald's.

>> We'd see "a lot of parked planes," says Bill Swelbar, an air transport engineer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The U.S. airline industry pays out $465 million in fuel costs for every $1 rise in oil. At $350-a-barrel oil, the industry would pay more than $100 billion extra, almost as much as last year's total airfare sales. Even if airlines ratcheted up fares 50%, half of their airplanes would be grounded because they'd be too expensive to fly, Swelbar reckons.

>> Many independent truckers, who pay for their own fuel, would go bankrupt as their costs soared and shippers switched to barges and trains. Taxis and FedEx would be strictly for the well-heeled. And home pizza deliveries would cease. Pizza delivery drivers also pay for their own gas. "It'd be brutal," says Joseph Miller, an assistant manager at a Domino's Pizza in Seattle. "I would think we wouldn't have any drivers."

>> Food prices could jump by a third or more, experts estimate. About 80 cents of the $4.50 retail cost of a box of cornflakes goes to transport it, says Dan Basse, the president of AgResource, a Chicago research company. On top of that, there's the cost of fertilizers to grow the corn and diesel for farm equipment. In 2005, transportation and energy made up 8.5% of all retail food costs, but energy was far cheaper then. As $10 gas pushed up food prices, pinched consumers would give up pricey fresh meat and vegetables for cheap pastas and oils. Ranchers and dairies with energy-hungry milking barns would struggle. And cities might sprout to life as people planted vegetable gardens on their roofs and balconies and in vacant lots.

>> Plastics for appliances, packaging, pacemakers and myriad other products would jump in price as the natural gas that plastic is made with rose in value alongside oil. Bill Wood, the president of Mountaintop Economics and Research in Massachusetts, says shoppers would have a choice: "Paper or paper?" Small plastic bottles of water would disappear. Glass and metal containers would make a comeback. And recycling would explode. Families might even have nine bins in the hall to separate their trash, as they do in Japan, where consumer recycling tops 90%.

>> As drivers began to switch to 100-mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrid cars (already expected to launch by 2010), the electricity grid could come under strain. Theoretically, if everyone had one and plugged it in at night, the grid could handle 84% of the nation's car fleet. But to avoid the risk of city brownouts, the grid capacity would have to rise. Solar, wave and wind power would ramp up. Giant solar thermal power plants, which use mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy, would be built. But in the rush to get power, we'd probably also step up the use of cheap, dirty coal (50% of our electricity generation now). Even nuclear power (21%) could be considered anew.

>> Resistance to drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off California would shrink. Environmentalists might stand their ground. But as James Williams, an energy economist for WTRG Economics in Arkansas, says, "Let's put it this way: Y'all wanna drive?" Oil reserves in both areas are thought to be more than 10 billion barrels, double the proven reserves in Texas. That would help feed America's 21-million-barrel-a-day appetite.

Gas Prices Lower Auto Insurance by Causing Less Driving

There may finally be at least one silver lining to nationwide gas prices topping $4 a gallon - lower auto insurance rates.

According to the Consumer Federation of America, consumers who are driving less could save an average of 5 to 15% on their automobile insurance rates –a savings of about $47 to $142.

According to CFA Director of Insurance J. Robert Hunter, with auto insurance rates partially based on how much consumers drive and how they use their car, actions taken to save money on gas from using mass transportation and carpooling to taking fewer trips to the store might mean consumers may qualify for immediate insurance rate relief.

Cheap Gas in Missouri

While the average gas price nationwide passed $4 last weekend, Missouri could boast of prices around $3.825, the cheapest in the country. How come the Show Me State has the lowest gas prices?

In Missouri, geography helps keep prices low. The state doesn't have any oil refineries, and its share of U.S. crude oil production is so small that the Department of Energy reports it as 0 percent. But because of its proximity to Texas, Oklahoma, and the Gulf Coast states, Missouri is crisscrossed by some of the nation's larger pipelines. Oil barges also pass through the state on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Proximity to producers reduces transportation costs a little, but it also makes Missouri less susceptible to price spikes when individual refineries run into problems.

Read More At: http://www.slate.com/id/2193222/?y=1