Derek's Blog at Babbly.com

Well, I've started moving up a little in the webhosting world, I've started the switch from shared hosting to a VPS (virtual private server).  I can't justify spending $100 a month on a dedicated server just yet, so a VPS seemed like the next best step.  I was tired of logging into this blog or one of my other sites and waiting 30 seconds just for a response and the page to start loading.  I was kind of hoping the VPS would be a little faster being (hopefully) a little less overloaded than the shared hosting server I was on (which according to a whois tool, had some 533+ other sites hosted on the same server..)  So far there doesn't seem to be a heck of a lot of difference in speed, occasionally, but not always.  It does offer a heck of a lot more flexibility in terms of setup and configuration though, being essentially like a dedicated server in appearances on my end.  What a hell of a learning curve though, and naturally being the rocket scientist that I am, jumped in and moved my biggest, most popular, and biggest revenue generating site over first.  Doh.  Only took me half a day ro get it setup and move everything over, and figure out why the heck the site wasn't working... One thing I did find out though, was that the modifications I had made to the template that caused the occasional temporary display glitch in Firefox actually ended up coming out totally messed up, on *any* browser.  That might explain why my various ad revenues and clickthrough has been in the toilet the last month or so...  So, back to the original unmodified template (sorry 800x600 users on that site) until I redo my modification a little better..  (I'd modified it so that it displayed an 800px wide version for resolutions of 800x600 and lower and the normal 1024x768 version to everyone else.  Yes, 800x600 is pretty passe nowadays, but close to 13% of all visitors still use that resolution (and a few at 640x480 too believe it or not, and the normal wider version meant that at 800x600 most all of the ads were scrolled off the screen.  13% of browsers not seeing the ads and losing that revenue didn't sit too well with me, hence the mods.)  It's pretty much fixed up now though, I changed it slightly so that the fixed-width button on the template fits an 800px wide screen properly, I just need to make that button a little more obvious as to what it is for now.)

OK, so gas prices are going higher and higher, and naturally being a Canadian in Ontario we get extra hosed compared to those just across the border in the Lewiston/Buffalo area.  (OK, a quick aside here, a few weeks ago I was heading down to NY for the day and checked out the price of gas to see what the price would be after exchange, if it was worth it to go down on empty and fill up there.  Price of gas here was $1.015 Canadian at the time, price over there was $2.99 9/10 US per gallon.  Quick metric lesson here, 1 US Gal = 3.78L, so with the 90 cent Canadian dollar, that works out to about 88.5 cents Canadian per litre.  Where Canadians get *super* hosed is well, on Super/Premium or mid-grade gas.  Price there was $3.09 9/10 US per gallon for mid-grade (2.9 cents US per liter more than regular) and $3.19 9/10 for Super (which incidentally is 93 octane at Mobil there, unlike the 91 octane at all the major stations here, other than 93 at Pioneer or 94 at Sunoco) which is 5.3 cents US per litre more.  How is that being super hosed?  Mid-grade 89 octane gas here in Ontario is 7 cents CDN or about 6.25 cents US per litre more, and Super (91 octane) is 11 cents CDN (9.8 cents US per litre) more.  Seeing as how Super there is 93 octane and not 91, it's only more fair to compare it to 93 at Pioneer or 94 at Sunoco which is 13 cents and 14 cents per litre more (11.6 and 12.5 cents US more, respectively.)  OK, gas is cheaper overall there mostly due to taxes but where's the justification in the price spread between gasoline grades being generally double what the spread is here.  I filled up with Super (90 litres) for just under $85 Canadian, the price worked out to 95 cents CDN per litre, 6 cents a litre less than bloody REGULAR is here.

Oh, my original hosing point was that when gas jumped to $1.085 a litre here, due to the "decreased AMERICAN reserves" (Hello, this is Canada, why should their bloody reserves affect us, considering we export oil/gas to the US...) I got pissed off and checked out the price of gas over there again.  OK, so we jumped 7 cents a litre.  Let's see how their decreasing reserves affect their gas prices...Hmm.  Price went up, to $3.05 9/10...  Uhh.  That's 1.6 cents US (1.8 cents CDN) per litre more.  WTF!  Talk about gouging, ok even if you believe their excuse about the price rising due to reserves being lower, why is our increase FOUR TIMES the increase at the pumps in the US?

So, anyways, I said the best way to reduce your gas bill.  Well, let's make it two ways, because I figured this all out.  If you're in Ontario, especially if you drive a vehicle that requires premium gasoline (and in most cases if you do, you can afford it anyways, but...) if you're within 75 km of the US border, taking into account a 90 cent dollar (ok it's like 92 cents now, even better), taking into account paying the bridge toll, and the gas to actually drive there and back, if you go down on empty and buy 85+ litres of premium gas,  you STILL come out ahead a few bucks.  Seriously.  Even better if you actually have a reason to go down, other than just to buy gas and come back, your gas savings basically pays for the trip there and back.

Anyways, the real tip is quite simple, and that is to slow the heck down.  Drive the speed limit.  Yeah, we've heard this a million times before, but it's absolutely true.  I drive 25-30 km to work and back each day on the highway, plus doing delivery I basically idle all night long and burn a ton of gas.  Well, I used to cruise at 120-130km/h on the highway, and my average mileage was 19.5L/100km.  Dropping down and cruising at 100-105km/h has brought my average fuel economy down to around 15L/100km.  And since I drive about 100-120km a day...  Well, 4.5 litres at the current $1.07 per litre means an average daily savings of at least $4.80 cents.  364 days a year.  That's $1747+ per year, just what I'm saving driving to work and back each night..

I drive a 2006 Chevrolet Uplander, which is rated 12.9L/100km City, and 8.7L/100km Hwy.  The onboard computer gives you a readout of your average fuel economy, which if you reset it while driving, will give you a fairly accurate readout of your current economy.  I've done this at various speeds on the same stretch of road, and here's the proof that driving slower will save you money.  At 130km/h it shows fuel consumption at around 12.5 L/100km.  At 120km/h it drops to around 11.5L/100km.  At 110km/h, it drops to around 9.5-10L/100km.  At 100km/h I've seen readings from 7.8L/100km to 8.7L/100km.  So on a 100km trip you can simply add a few minutes to your driving time, and save yourself close to 4 litres of fuel, just by slowing down from 130 to 100.

Incidentally, the speed I've seen the BEST fuel economy at is at just over 60km/h, around 65-70.  This is the point that the transmission is in 4th, and the torque convertor engages, putting engine RPM at around 1200-1250, which will let you cruise along with a fuel consumption of anywhere from 6.8L/100km to 7.5L/100km.

These are all real-world numbers based on my actual driving.

Try it sometime.  Slow yourself down for a few weeks, park yourself in the right hand lane and cruise the limit.  Not only will you save yourself some money at the pumps, but you'll be a hell of a lot less stressed out on the road, too.