Petrol saving tips for each day of the week

Petrol prices are up again by Rs 5, the ninth hike in nine months. What can we do other then crib about it? Yes we can surely do something  about it! There are many ways to manage our petrol costs so that it does not send your monthly budget for a toss. I am sharing seven simple tips to reduce our petrol costs. If we follow at least one tip every day, we will end up saving up on petrol every day of the week.

1. Use public transport at least once a week.
• In the big cities the public transport system is decent and efficient and it would be good to switch more of our car trips to public transport. The Volvo a/c buses in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore etc are good and should be used more often. The middle of the week could be a good time to switch to public transport when you are not hit by the Monday morning blues.
2. Carpool on Friday's for work and use the weekend to carpool with neighbors
• We can work out ways to share our trips to office with colleagues in our neighborhood. We can combine weekly grocery shopping trips with your neighbors. Not only will we save on petrol, we will also reduce wear and tear on your car. The additional benefit is that we will get time to connect with colleagues and neighbors. Fridays can be a good day to carpool to work. Weekends can be a go time to carpool with your neighbors sharing your car trips for grocery shopping. The shared car trips will make the traffic less irritating.
3. Plan trips to include at least three tasks per trip
• We can plan our office trips, grocery shopping trips better. We can club our trips together so that we can reduce the total number of car trips per week. We should shop for grocery once a week. Food staples like rice, sugar, tea etc should be purchased once a month. If possible we should club trips to meet friends with the grocery shopping. We should plan our trip so that we can complete at least three tasks in a trip.
4. Check your tyre pressure at least once a week 
• Improper tyre pressure will reduce the mileage of our car. We could get our tyre pressure checked every time in the week we fill up petrol. If we are lazy, then getting our tyre pressure checked at least once in fifteen days is a must.
5. Improve your driving habits
• It is good to drive slowly and maintain a constant speed. It is difficult to do in the start and stop in the city traffic. However, maintaining a constant driving speed avoiding frequent use of the clutch , accelerator and brake will definitely improve our car mileage. 
6. Dump the excess baggage
• We should not treat our car as a moving cupboard or a dumping ground with stuff lying in the car. We may be carrying old newspaper, magazines, bags from various shopping trips, papers from our office etc in the car. All these items increase the weight or the load the car engine is hauling in every trip. The increase in the weight the car engine is hauling reduces the mileage of your car. Keeping the car free from unnecessary clutter will definitely improve the mileage of our car. Those who are interested in the research behind this theory can read the research .
7. One day of the week, avoid stepping out of the house
• For those of us working five day weeks, Sunday could be a good day not to step out of the house. If we finish all your chores and fun trips outside the house for the week by Saturday, we could then stay in or invite friends or family over on Sundays. Not only will we save on petrol and other associated costs with stepping out of the house, but more importantly we will get to spend quality time with our family and friends. The petrol costs will go down but the quality of the relationship with our family will surely go up. 

I am sure we all can find many more ways to save on petrol costs. It is better to spend time figuring out ways to save on our petrol costs rather than just only complaining about it.