Setup a little spreadsheet to track my fuel costs.

So, one of the reason I bought my used 2002 Jetta TDI was because my commute rose to 120 miles round trip per day.

When I first started crunching numbers and realized the car would literally pay for itself I thought it was a no brainer. Of course, then I came here and realized the maintenance and upkeep cost would probably significantly eat into my savings... but I bought it anyways.

At any rate, here is about a months worth of data. Overall MPG is 46.38 and I figured it saved me around $162 vs. driving my Regal the same distance.

http://www.belome.com/images/tdisavings.xls

I'm sure I could do better if I tried, but I'm certianly not unhappy.

www.fuelly.com
does it all for you!

Fuelly won't put down each purchase unless you have WiFi in a device that you can input it for each fillup. I've little (roughly) 3 x 5 spiral notebooks in each vehicle. I've gas records at front, oil changes about half way through and TBA (tires, batteries & accessories) about 2/3 way back, marked by tabs. Gas doesn't have a tab because it's first.

Once I get a page or so done in the book, I bring it in and add all the gallonage from each page and the beginning and ending miles into a spreadsheet. I've separate sheets for each vehicle. Sometimes, I'll enter the gallonage by time of year or before and after a change made rather than just for the page. I've dates in the TBA section. Haven't tallied the values for the TDI yet. Have barely completed a page because it goes so far on each tank.

The 2700 is a mistake... I'll fix that.

As for what I'm trying to see, the theory was that if I were driving the Regal instead of the TDI it would cost me X number of dollars for the same amount of miles. I used a static 24mpg average for for the Regal.

I'm basically trying to see if the TDI is paying for itself. Which, if it weren't for maintenance, it would be pretty close.

RalphVa said:

Fuelly won't put down each purchase unless you have WiFi in a device that you can input it for each fillup...

Click to expand...

Fuelly now supports fillups via text message from cellular phones, FYI:

http://www.fuelly.com/blog/469/Fuelup-via-SMS

Meh my spreadsheet has a lot more than fuelly offers. I'll always stick with it. Plus I can update it on my Android phone and get home, open Google and it's there.