A driving desire to drive…
Later this morning I'm pulling up stakes in New Braunfels, Texas to make my move to Bend, Oregon. Am I keyed up? Just a little. It's 3:00AM and I'm awake... Last night I discovered a great game to play on this little odyssey across our country. Every month I prepare a budget ahead of time to make sure that my money is going where it needs to go so that I can get every dime to pull the most weight. Since learning this practice from Dave Ramsey I've not had to worry about ending up with more month than money. This really works.
Ok back to my game. Using google maps I estimated the distance I would be traveling during this trip. Using that information and knowing that I can go about 270 miles on a tank of gas it was easy to determine that I'd need around $400 for fuel. Using Google Maps and Fuel Me Up .com I've mapped the places where I'll stop for fuel. Estimating that I'll get about 17 miles per gallon, and how much fuel I'll need at the price listed on FuelmeUp It looks like the trip will actually come in at about $330.
Ok, here's the fun part. Now that I've written down the plan I'll get to see how well I've done.
Will I finish higher or lower than the plan? Have I got the gas prices right? Have I estimated my mpg correctly? Tomorrow I'll get to begin to find out.
One more thing... I promise to keep you updated about how I'm doing. Here's my plan
| Town | Miles | Gallons | MPG | Price | Total |
| New Braunfels, Tx | 0 | 14.5 | N/A | $1.36 | $20.00 |
| Ozona, Tx | 225 | 12.5 | 18 | $1.55 | $20.00 |
| Carlsbad, NM | 247 | 13.7 | 18 | $1.66 | $23.74 |
| Deming, NM | 273 | 15.6 | 18 | $1.50 | $23.50 |
| Tucson, Az | 216 | 12 | 18 | $1.46 | $17.52 |
| Gilbert, Az | 116 | 6.8 | 18 | $1.44 | $9.80 |
| Yuma, Az | 208 | 12.2 | 18 | $1.70 | $20.80 |
| San Diego, Ca | 172 | 10.2 | 18 | $1.74 | $17.80 |
| San Diego, Ca | 200 | 11.1 | 15 | $1.74 | $19.31 |
| Anaheim, Ca | 95 | 5.5 | 18 | $1.72 | $9.50 |
| Los Angeles, Ca | 280 | 15.5 | 16 | $1.68 | $26.20 |
| Goleta, Ca | 80 | 5 | 18 | $1.80 | $8.95 |
| Salinas, Ca | 225 | 12.5 | 18 | $1.80 | $22.50 |
| San Francisco, Ca | 106 | 5.8 | 18 | $1.81 | $10.66 |
| Redding, Ca | 215 | 11.9 | 18 | $1.84 | $21.90 |
| Ashland, Or | 136 | 7.5 | 18 | $1.80 | $13.60 |
| Salem, Or | 241 | 13.3 | 18 | $1.70 | $22.76 |
| Bend, Or | 145 | 8 | 18 | $1.70 | $13.69 |
| __________ | ________ | ________ | __avg____ | __avg____ | _________ |
| Totals | 3180 | 193.6 | 16.4 | $1.67 | $321.98 |
If you're thinking that the San Diego and Los Angeles entries look a bit odd it's because I've made allowances for driving around to visit friends.
It's going to be fun to see how close this plan turns out.
