Miles Per Dollar

Some enterprising person has put together a very simple Miles Per Dollar calculator. Nothing earth shattering, but it can be a good idea to think about gas in this way. I can think of a few reasons to make the calculation:

• total cost of owning a new car. What's the MPG? Does it use regular or premium? If you want to be clever, you can factor in the price of the car and how many miles you expect it to drive it, minus the residual value.


• deciding whether it makes sense to drive or take some other form of transportation. My car takes 92 Octane, which costs about $3.40 per gallon. My car gets about 18 miles per gallon, so I get about 5.29 miles per dollar. Cost of a 120 mile one-way trip to San Diego: $23. Cost of taking the train: $32. Of course, driving depreciates my car, and taking the train uses a bit more of my time, depending on when I go.