Hypermiling by telecommuting

As promised, some more information about my #1 hypermiling strategy: working at home, otherwise known as telecommuting or telework. Think of it this way, any mile you DON'T drive saves you W-A-A-A-Y more gas than any hypermiling driving technique you can pick up from my blog or other blogs or websites on the topic.

I have been working exclusively at home for 4-1/2 years. This is a full-time telecommuting position, NOT MLM or other home-based business--or even this blog or our main website (not YET anyway **smile**).

Let's look at telecommuting from the perspective of hypermiling. I will talk more about telecommuting and how to find ways to work at home in future posts. I live in a relatively small city of about 60,000 people. SO, let's call my average commute 15 miles round trip. How much gas am I saving then by telecommuting?

• 15 miles x 5 days per week = 75 miles / week of driving saved
• 3 weeks (last fuel-up) x 75 miles = 225 miles saved since my last fill-up
• Add 225 hyperUNmiles to the 150 miles I had at the half-tank mark at the end of the third week: 225 + 150 = 375 "hypermiles"

So I got 375 equivalent miles or "hypermiles" by not driving and by implementing gas-saving hypermiling techniques when I was actually driving. Now, let's calculate my hypermiling MPG including the additional 225 hyperUNmiles:

• 375 hypermiles divided by 5.5 gallons of gas (half a tank) = 68.2 MPG!!!!!

And 15 miles is a very short commute. According to this article (2005), the average US commute is about 16 miles ONE-way. (This article also has some interesting survey data on driving habits, traffic, enjoyment, and tactics drivers used to avoid high-traffic driving.) And we're not even adding in the child care savings yet for our two girls ($200/wk??--isn't that indicative? I don't even know how much daycare costs!) I don't know how families can survive on that kind of a budget!