drive less

Between fill ups. That’s a record. Not sure what happened, though, because it doesn’t feel like I was less busy . . . the carpooling but really be making a difference.

Since the school year started, my boyfriend and I have carpooled to work 28 times. Some weeks were better than others but we did our best. That’s 14 times each that we saved driving, and 28 days we kept a car off the road. We figured we could only really consider the gas costs as a savings, since we’d each have a car anyway and aren’t sure how to quantify wear and tear. But at 30 miles round trip to work, or roughly a gallon each day since we both get around 30 mpg, and at $3 a gallon, we have saved each about 14 x $3 or about $40. Nice. When we’re doing it and it’s only once in a while it doesn’t feel like much of a difference but when you add it up, it really is. I wish I knew how to calculate the environmental impact.

my BF and I rode to work together four days, saving each of us two. But now I am vacation so though I will personally be driving less, he is going to have to drive himself alone every day. Suck for him.

to the University library by using my public library’s ILL option. Nice.

My boyfriend and I have carpooled to work eight times since school started (3 + 3 + 2). That’s almost one workweek each that we’ve saved of driving. Sometimes, like this week when we can only ride together three times, and so he ends up driving four days out of five, it doesn’t seem worth it. But over time, it adds up.

to the U today. It’s actually easier than driving because I know where the bus drops and don’t know where all the parking lots are. The ironic thing is that when it was time to leave my house to walk to the stop, I realized I didn’t have cash. So I drove to the grocery store near the bus stop, bought a sandwich for lunch, got change to use on the bus, and took the bus over. I breathlessly hurried into my session and was perplexed in that it seemed they had been working together for a while already, not the one or two minutes I thought I was arriving late . . . so I check the registration and dumb me, I got here half an hour early. So I have time to update my 43T ;)

*“walk or bike to anywhere within two miles of my home”
*“get rid of my car”

I felt neither of them were going to happen in the foreseeable future. Now, I know we put things on 43T to make them happen, not to have them happen. But these were becoming so hard for me that I hadn’t made entries or seriously worked on them for months. So I “gave up” on each and am hoping that working on “driving less” will be more flexible and more rewarding – because I do have some things I’m doing that should help.

I will probably make a chart, too. Just have to figure out how. Miles per week?