Save Money on Gas: 82 Proven Fuel-Saving Strategies That Really Work

Episode Description

Every time you fill your gas tank, you're making a financial decision. But how much control do you really have over what you spend at the pump?

In this episode of the RetireCoast Podcast, we explore 82 proven ways to save money on gas using practical strategies that almost anyone can implement. You'll learn how to maximize fuel rewards programs, choose the correct octane fuel, improve fuel economy through smarter driving habits, maintain your vehicle for peak efficiency, plan trips more effectively, and avoid common mistakes that quietly increase your annual fuel bill.

Whether you drive a commuter car, pickup truck, SUV, RV, or manage a small business fleet, these proven techniques could help reduce your transportation costs by hundreds—or even thousands—of dollars each year.

This episode is part of the RetireCoast Fuel Price Intelligence Center™, our growing collection of educational articles, interactive calculators, infographics, podcasts, and planning tools designed to help you better understand gasoline, diesel, crude oil prices, and the many factors that influence what you pay at the pump. Rather than relying on headlines or speculation, our goal is to provide practical, fact-based information that helps you make smarter financial decisions.

After listening, visit the RetireCoast Fuel Price Intelligence Center™ to explore our free Fuel Savings Calculator™, Household Fuel Budget Calculator, State Fuel Price Lookup, Small Business Fuel Calculator, Crude Oil Impact Calculator, and many more resources created to help you spend less on fuel and keep more of your money working for your future.

Whether your goal is to lower your monthly budget, reduce business operating expenses, save for retirement, or simply understand why fuel prices change, this episode will give you practical ideas you can start using today.

Visit RetireCoast.com for more on this story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Retire Coast Podcast, where money, business, and lifestyle come together. Join us each week as we explore smarter financial planning, starting and growing businesses, and building the life you want at every stage, from millennials and gen X to today's retirees. And now, here's your host, serial entrepreneur, author, and financial guide, Bill Anderson.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Welcome back to Retire Coast. Thank you for stopping by to listen to our podcast today. We're going to begin a new section in Retire Coast, starting with the Fuel Price Intelligence Center articles and tools. You know, recently uh it's been pretty clear that one of the key things that people talk about almost every day is the price of gasoline and diesel fuel. It's a topic that people talk about at the dinner table, at work, everywhere. As you drive by a gas station, you can't help it. You've got to look to see what that price is. How much did it come down today? How much did it go up today? Then you've got to read the articles about who's to blame for it, going up or going down. Um it is just something that we it's part of our culture. Now, most of us don't know the price of a you know a bag of bread or a dozen eggs, although eggs may be more common because we had a problem once before with that. But for most things that are at the grocery store, most things that we buy, we don't really know what that price is till we get there because we know we need it. Well, you know, we know we need fuel also, but we're always on the hunt for that station that can save us about two cents or three cents. And maybe you use Gas Buddy or one of the other applications to check out the local area and find out where the best price to go is. Well, we're going to help you with that in this article. This is a long one. This, in fact, this podcast is going over an hour. It's about 70 minutes, roughly. It's one of our longer ones. And I hope you're you stay with us on this because it's absolutely fascinating. Now, I could talk for that period of time easily because I was in the oil business and I know a great deal about this. So I created an article, extensive article, 17,000 words, which for those of you that may not know, your typical article on the web is probably around 2,000, 3,000 words, a little bit light, full of advertising. Whereas when you go to the Retire Coast articles, you won't see all of that. What you'll see is charts and graphs and infographics and images and audio and uh video. Everything to fully explain so you become kind of an expert on fuel and fuel pricing because there's so much garbage out there about what causes all of this, that people are scamming somebody or they're charging too much or whatever. And you're gonna hear all of that here, and we're gonna dish out some serious facts to you and give you some references that you can go after. But for the average person, it's about time you pretty much learn what makes things work in this country, and that is come what comes out of the ground is crude oil that makes not only fuel but the clothing we wear and the furniture we have and our houses and pretty much everything else, even a lot of the parts of the cell phone that you're listening to this now on. So we're gonna get more into that with the Fuel Price Intelligence Center. We have a number of great tools in there. You need to go in there because we've made this free. Um we have some membership programs that uh you'll hear about also that you might want to get into, and those are uh that's a paid membership, and there's great tools in there too. But we wanted to really get people going because of all of the talk about fuel these days, and uh going up, going down, you know, the issues over in the Middle East, and we want you to just be completely aware. So we're giving you all these tools, you can actually figure out when the price of crude is, for example, ninety dollars a barrel, which hopefully it never gets up that high again, uh, how much what does that affect the price of regular gas or diesel gas at the pump? So we have all of that for you, and we have it by state also, uh, that includes things like state taxes and other things. Um for some people they're gonna say, Oh, I didn't really want to know that because I don't feel good about it now. Uh but that's the way it is. So we're gonna give you the facts and nothing but the facts. There's no innuendo here, there's no guesswork, there's no politics whatsoever. We're not gonna talk about who's right and who's wrong, but you will come to your own conclusions as you listen to this, and we have presented it in a dialogue format that is easy to listen to, where there's actual discussion, two people talking to each other about this topic, uh, and in its in-depth. So please stick with us and then go to retirecoes.com and look at our article about this, and go to the Fuel Price Intelligence Center and check out our tools and our other articles there as well. We want you to know everything we know about it. And as I said, I was in the oil industry and I know a lot, so I'm gonna pass it all along to you, including a lot of the secrets that nobody talks about. Uh, we'll mention a few of them here and there in different articles as we write. So thank you for coming to Retire Coast Podcast, listen to some of our other podcasts, and of course, come to RetireCoast.com.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Imagine for a second um spending like fourteen minutes of your day sitting completely still in your driveway, just staring at the steering wheel.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Right. Just doing absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Yeah, just sitting there. And for the privilege of doing this every single day, you you know voluntarily pay an annual subscription fee of roughly five hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Aaron Ross Powell I mean, you wouldn't do it. No rational human being would ever sign up for that.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Aaron Ross Powell Exactly. You'd cancel that subscription immediately. Yet mathematically speaking, that is exactly what millions of drivers are doing on the highway every single morning.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Aaron Powell It's wild when you think about it like that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

It really is. Like we pay these exorbitant amounts of money to gain fractions of time that we instantly squander. And we do it while burning through honestly one of the most volatile expenses in our household budgets.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Aaron Powell It is a phenomenal illusion. We operate under this bizarre psychological assumption that uh the faster we move or the more aggressively we try to outsmart the system, you know, the more we're winning. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

But we aren't winning.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

No, not at all. Because the reality of automotive transportation is governed by cold, hard physics and behavioral economics. And while those two forces absolutely do not care about how much of a rush you are in.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

They really don't. And as lifelong learners, you, our listener, are always looking for smart, actionable ways to optimize the systems in your life. You want to stop paying those invisible subscription fees.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Which is exactly why we're here today.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Right. Today, we are completely reframing how you think about buying and burning fuel. Welcome to this deep dive. We have our hands on an incredibly detailed, data-driven report from the Retire Coast Fuel Price Intelligence Center.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

And it's a fantastic source.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

It really is. It's titled 82 Proven Ways to Save Money on Gas: The Ultimate Guide to Lower Fuel Costs. And our mission today is not to give you a lecture on pinching pennies.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

No, nobody wants that.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

Right. We're telling you to drive a miserable stripped down eco box.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Far from it. We are not talking about restriction here. We are talking about precision.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

I love that word for this. Precision.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah, because most people look at the marquee sign outside a gas station, see the price fluctuating, and just surrender to this feeling of total helplessness. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Like it's a force of nature or something.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Aaron Ross Powell Exactly. And sure, the price of global crude oil is out of your hands. But the actual monetary figure you spend over a 12-month period, that is highly within your control.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Aaron Ross Powell Assuming you understand where the leaks are in your personal transportation system.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Right. And it's like trying to fix a leaky bucket by just pouring water in faster, it doesn't work. You have to plug the leaks.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Aaron Ross Powell Okay. So before we get into the mechanics of how to optimize this, um we have to establish the baseline. We have to set the stakes of what we're actually dealing with here.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Aaron Ross Powell Because fuel is one of those expenses that bleeds us in microtransactions.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

Aaron Ross Powell Exactly. We swipe a card for 40 bucks, maybe 50 bucks, 60 bucks. It doesn't trigger the same financial anxiety as paying a massive mortgage bill.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Aaron Ross Powell But when you zoom out, the macro math is absolutely staggering.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Aaron Powell It's terrifying. So let's look at the baseline data for an average driver.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Aaron Powell Okay. So we're looking at someone logging roughly 15,000 miles a year in a standard vehicle. One that averages, say, twenty-five miles per gallon. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Which is pretty standard for a mid-size SUV or a crossover.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, very common. That translates to purchasing about 600 gallons of fuel annually.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

If we apply a conservative average price of $3.50 a gallon, that's $2,100 a year disappearing into a single gas tank.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

$2,100. Post-tax money.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Right. Money you already paid income tax on.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Exactly. And that is just one vehicle. Factor in a two-car household or, you know, a family with a teenager driving to high school, and that baseline easily doubles or triples.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Aaron Powell So you're looking at a five-year rolling expense of ten, maybe fifteen thousand dollars just to keep your household physically moving.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Aaron Ross Powell Which means any optimization we do here isn't just about saving pocket change, it's about reclaiming significant capital.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Aaron Ross Powell So let's start at the very beginning of the process. Long before you worry about aerodynamics or engine mechanics, you are losing money at the point of purchase.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Aaron Powell The financial transaction itself is where the first massive leak occurs.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Aaron Powell Because when you pay that $3.50 at the pump, you aren't just paying for the liquid. You're paying for a complex stack of costs.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Right. It is a heavily burdened product. You are paying for the global extraction of crude oil, the highly complex refining process to turn that crude into combustible gasoline.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

The logistical transportation to get it to your local station.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Exactly. Plus federal and state excise taxes, and finally the retail margin, which is the station owner's operating costs and profit.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Aaron Powell And as a consumer, I mean I have zero leverage over global crude markets.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

None.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

And I certainly can't negotiate my state fuel taxes with the governor. Nope. So the only sliver of that pie I can manipulate is the retail margin and my method of payment.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Aaron Powell But the report points out that in trying to manipulate that tiny sliver, drivers fall into this massive behavioral trap. It is a perfect example of loss aversion and the gamification of our modern economy.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

Aaron Ross Powell Because we all have apps on our phones now, right? Gas buddy, Waze, upside.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah. And they show us real-time pricing grids of every station in our zip code.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Aaron Ross Powell Right. And human nature dictates that if we see a station across town offering gas for like 10 cents cheaper per gallon, we feel compelled to go claim that discount.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Aaron Powell It feels like a victory against the oil companies.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Aaron Powell But the math on that victory is completely illusory. I ran the numbers from the source on this and it's honestly maddening. Let's hear it. So let's say you have a standard fifteen-gallon tank. You find a station offering a 10 cent discount. If you fill up completely empty to completely full, your total gross savings at the pump is $1.50.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

$1.50. That is your absolute maximum upside.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Right. Now suppose that station is a six-mile detour from your normal commuting route. Six miles there, six miles back to get back on track.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

That is twelve extra miles driven.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

In our baseline twenty-five mile per gallon car, you just burned half a gallon of fuel solely to acquire the discount.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

And at $3.50 a gallon, that half gallon costs you $1.75.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

So you spent $1.75 to save $1.50.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

You have a net loss of 25 cents.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Aaron Ross Powell Not to mention the 20 minutes of your life you just wasted in traffic.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Right. And the physical wear and tear on your tires and suspension, you are literally paying for the privilege of wasting your own time.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

Aaron Ross Powell So this brings up a crucial question for you, the listener. Because if chasing a 10 cent discount across town is a mathematical failure, and paying cash for a 10 cent discount is often a bad deal, how are you actually supposed to win at the pump?

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Aaron Ross Powell Are you just supposed to surrender to whatever station is geographically closest?

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Aaron Powell Exactly. What do we do?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Aaron Ross Powell Well, not surrender, no. You shift your strategy from hunting localized temporary discounts to establishing structural advantages.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

The report calls this the stacking method, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yes. You build a purchasing system that consistently lowers your cost without requiring additional miles or time.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Aaron Powell So what's the foundation of this stack?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Aaron Ross Powell The Foundation is purchasing fuel where it is structurally, not just promotionally cheaper. We are talking about warehouse clubs like Costco, Sam's Club, or major grocery store fuel point programs.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Aaron Ross Powell Because the economics of those places are completely different from a corner gas station.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Aaron Ross Powell Totally different. A corner station needs to make a profit on the gas, plus maybe a candy bar and a soda inside.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

Right. But a warehouse club uses fuel as a loss leader.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Exactly. They are perfectly happy to break even or take a slight loss on the gasoline because the fuel pumps are essentially a giant magnetic billboard pulling you into their parking lot.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Where you will then walk inside and buy a $200 television and a massive block of cheese.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Exactly. They are leveraging fuel to drive massive retail volume. Because of that economic model, the data shows that warehouse clubs consistently price their fuel roughly 15 cents cheaper per gallon than traditional retailers.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Okay, so on our 600 gallon annual baseline, that structural advantage alone saves you $90 a year.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Which is a nice start, you know? But $90 over a year isn't going to radically change anyone's financial picture.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Aaron Ross Powell This is where the stacking part of the equation comes in.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Right. You take that structural warehouse discount and you stack a highly optimized payment method on top of it.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

Because a lot of people believe the ultimate gas hack is paying cash, right? To get the traditional cash discount at a standard pump, which is usually about 10 cents a gallon.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah. Because paying cash avoids the merchant processing fees for the station owner, so they pass a fraction of that savings back to you. Seems logical.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

But it is mathematically inferior to a well-managed rewards credit card.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Let's break down the math on a credit card specifically optimized for fuel. One offering, say, five percent cash tick.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

And five percent cards are incredibly common if you have decent credit.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

They are everywhere. So at our baseline price of three dollars and fifty cents a gallon, a five percent cash back reward yields you seventeen and a half cents back on every single gallon.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Wait, seventeen and a half cents? So right out of the gate, using the credit card is beating the ten cent cash discount by a huge margin.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yes. Now apply the stacking method. You go to the warehouse club that is already on your normal route.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

So you get their structural 15 cent discount.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Then you swipe your five percent rewards card and get an additional 17.5 cents back on the back end.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Wow. So you are effectively paying 32 and a half cents less per gallon than the driver who pulls into a random corner station and pays with physical cash.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

You are double dipping the system.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

That is brilliant. But and this is a massive but, this comes with a flashing neon warning sign from the source material.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

This entire stacking strategy is financially lethal if you do not understand the psychology of credit card debt.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

It is the ultimate interest rate track.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Right. The banks aren't just giving away money.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Exactly. The banks offer these lucrative five percent rewards specifically because they know human behavior. They are betting that a significant portion of consumers will carry a balance.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

And the moment you carry a balance on that card and incur an interest charge at what 24 or 29% APR?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Your fuel savings are instantly vaporized. The mathematical gravity of compound credit card interest will relentlessly outpace any cash back reward you could ever earn.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Which means this strategy only works if you have the discipline to treat that credit card exactly like a debit card.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Yes. You purchase the fuel, you capture the reward, and you pay the balance in full down to the penny at the end of every single billing cycle.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

If you cannot maintain that microhabit, you are far better off just paying cash.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

It requires rigorous financial hygiene. But if you have it, you have effectively plugged the first major leak in the bucket before you even sit in the driver's seat.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Okay, so we've optimized the financial transaction. We were buying our gas efficiently. Now we have to look closely at the product itself, right there at the pump interface.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Which brings us to one of the most pervasive, stubbornly held myths in the entire automotive landscape.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

The octane illusion.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

It is a masterpiece of historical marketing that continues to cost drivers hundreds of millions of dollars every single year.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

I see constantly. Someone buys a perfectly normal, reliable commuter sedan like a Honda or a Toyota, and they feel this urge to like treat their car.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Right, they want to baby it.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Yeah. They pull up to the pump, bypass the regular 87 octane, and press that shiny button for the 91 or 93 octane premium.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Because there is this deeply ingrained psychological belief that premium gas is chemically cleaner or that it possesses more latent energy.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Or that it will magically unlock hidden horsepower and extend the life of a standard engine.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

And it is entirely false from a thermodynamic and chemical standpoint.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Completely false.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Premium gasoline does not contain more potential energy per unit of volume than regular 87 octane. It is not inherently better or manufactured to a higher standard of purity.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

So what does premium actually mean then?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

The word premium is purely a marketing convention. Scientifically speaking, an octane rating is nothing more than a measurement of a fuel's resistance to premature detonation under pressure and heat.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Aaron Powell Let's dig into the physics of that, because for an audience that understands the basics of internal combustion, the distinction between a standard engine and a high performance engine is crucial here.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Aaron Powell Yes, we are talking about compression ratios and force induction.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Right. So in an internal combustion engine, the fuel air mixture is compressed inside the cylinder before the spark plug ignites it.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Aaron Ross Powell Precisely. And in high performance sports cars or heavily turbocharged engines, the engineers design the cylinders to compress that mixture to an extreme degree to extract maximum power.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Aaron Ross Powell And the pressure is immense and the heat generated by that compression is intense.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Aaron Powell Extremely intense. And under that extreme heat and pressure, the fuel actually wants to spontaneously combust before the spark plug even fires.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Aaron Powell Which is really bad, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yes. That is autoignition, commonly known as engine knock or pre-ignition. It is essentially a road out-of-sink explosion hammering against the piston.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Aaron Ross Powell It sounds incredibly destructive to the internal components of an engine over time.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Aaron Powell Oh, it is. It will destroy an engine. So to prevent this, petroleum engineers blend specific hydrocarbon chains into the fuel to make it chemically harder to ignite.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

It requires more activation energy to combust.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Exactly. That resistance is what the octane number represents. Higher octane simply means the fuel is more stable under extreme pressure.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Aaron Powell Okay, so if I am driving a standard commuter car, an engine engineered with a normal, moderate compression ratio designed specifically for regular 87 octane.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

That engine is never going to generate the extreme internal pressures required to cause autoignition anyway.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

So it doesn't need the protection.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Exactly. Your engine simply does not create the violent environment that necessitates high octane protection.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

So when you pump 93 octane premium into an engine designed for 87, the engine is physically incapable of utilizing that extra resistance.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

The premium fuel combusts exactly the same way at exactly the same time as the regular fuel would have.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

You gain zero horsepower.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Zero.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Zero improvement in fuel economy.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Nothing.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

And zero extra engine longevity.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

It is entirely a waste.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

I love the analogy we were discussing earlier. It is like buying a custom tailored tuxedo for your golden retriever.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

It's extremely expensive, it doesn't improve their performance, and it's completely unnecessary. Or wait, the other one, it's like pouring a driveway out of highly specialized steel reinforced concrete designed for a 747 runway, and then only ever parking a bicycle on it.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Aaron Ross Powell That is a perfect structural analogy. The extra structural integrity is technically there, but your bicycle is never going to stress the system enough to require it. It is a spectacular waste of resources.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

And the financial penalty for that misunderstanding is brutal. The source report outlines a real world pricing delta from Gulfport, Mississippi, which illustrates the gap beautifully.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

What were the numbers there?

SPEAKER_03 20:48

They documented regular gas priced at $3.16 a gallon, while premium was sitting at $3.99.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

So that is an 83 cent difference per gallon.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

83 cents a gallon just for the word premium.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Let's apply that to our baseline math. A driver doing 300 miles a week at 25 miles per gallon is burning 12 gallons of fuel weekly.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

And if they stubbornly buy premium when their owner's manual explicitly calls for regular paying an extra $9.96 every single week for absolutely no mechanical benefit. Over a year, that compounds to nearly $518.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

You are systematically setting half a thousand dollars on fire annually because of a misunderstood chemical definition.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

So let me introduce the nuance here. Because automotive engineering isn't always black and white.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

What happens when you open the owner's manual of a modern crossover or a turbocharged sedan, and it explicitly states that premium fuel is recommended, but not required? Because that specific phrasing confuses a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

They are telling you that the engine was physically engineered and mapped to achieve its absolute peak horsepower and efficiency using high octane fuel.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

Um, but they also know that sometimes you might be in the middle of nowhere and only have access to regular 87.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Right. So they equip the engine with highly sensitive acoustic microphones called knock sensors.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Wait, microphones inside the engine?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Basically, yes. They listen for specific frequencies. If you fill that premium recommended car with regular 87 octane and the engine begins to experience the microscopic early stages of pre-ignition, the knock sensors detect that frequency instantly.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

And then what?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Within milliseconds, the engine's computer reacts by pulling back the spark timing. It fires the spark plug slightly later in the combustion cycle to prevent the knock.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Oh wow. So the engine actively detunes itself to protect its own internals.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Precisely. It is a brilliant failsafe. The vehicle will run perfectly smoothly and safely on regular gas indefinitely.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

So what's the catch?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

The trade-off is that by retarding the timing, the engine is intentionally operating slightly below its maximum thermodynamic potential.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

So you might lose like 10 horsepower off the top end.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Exactly. Now, in every day, stop and go city driving or cruising lightly on the highway, you will almost certainly never feel that microscopic loss of power.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

So it doesn't matter for a commute.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Not really. The only scenario where you might truly notice the difference and where you might experience a slight dip in fuel economy as the engine works harder is under high load.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Like what?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yes. If you are towing a heavy trailer or aggressively climbing a steep mountain gradient in peak summer heat, the engine needs every ounce of its engineered potential.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

In those high stress situations, giving it the recommended premium makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Exactly. But for commuting, regular is mathematically superior.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Okay, so we've established absolute optimization while the car is parked. We are buying fuel strategically, and we have the exact right chemistry in the tank for the engine's compression ratio. Now we turn the key, shift into drive, and start moving. This transitions us into the physics of motion.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

This is where things get really interesting.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

Because the source material makes a deeply counterintuitive point here. Once your car is rolling, especially at highway speeds, your biggest enemy is no longer the efficiency of your engine.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

No, it's not. Your biggest enemy is the atmosphere itself. Yes. Fluid dynamics dictate everything that happens on the highway. We don't typically think of the air as a fluid because we move through it so effortlessly when walking.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Right, it feels empty.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

But at speed, the air becomes a formidable physical barrier. When you are navigating low speed city traffic, the majority of the mechanical energy your engine produces is dedicated to overcoming the initial inertia of a 3,000 pound metal object.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Just getting it rolling.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Right, and the rolling resistance of the rubber tires deforming against the pavement.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

But as the speedometer climbs, that energy equation flips violently.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

It does. You are forcing a blunt object through a fluid medium. The critical mathematical concept to grasp here is that aerodynamic drag does not scale linearly with speed.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Meaning if I go faster, it doesn't just get a little harder.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

It scales exponentially. The drag equation states that the force of drag is proportional to the square of your velocity.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

Meaning if you double your speed, the air resistance doesn't double. It quadruples.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Exactly. Punching through the air at 40 miles per hour requires a baseline amount of energy. Accelerating from forty to fifty requires a moderate increase in energy.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

But pushing a vehicle from 65 miles per hour to 80 miles per hour. Which brings us to the data surrounding the sweet spot for fuel economy. We all inherently know that driving fast burns more gas, but the drop-off isn't a gentle slope. It's a cliff.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

A total cliff.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

The report's data shows that the vast majority of passenger vehicles hit their peak aerodynamic and mechanical efficiency somewhere between 50 and 65 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

That speed range is the golden intersection.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

Why that specific range?

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Because the vehicle's transmission has shifted into its highest, most efficient overdrive gear, the engine RPM is low and relaxed, and critically, the exponential curve of aerodynamic drag hasn't yet gone vertical.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

The numbers from the source illustrate this brutally. A driver in a crossover might achieve 32 miles per gallon cruising steadily at 60 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Which is great.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

But if that exact same driver on the exact same road decides to push their speed up to 80 miles per hour, their efficiency routinely drops to 24 miles per gallon or worse.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

You are willingly sacrificing eight miles of travel for every single gallon of fuel you burn simply for the privilege of driving faster.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

Which forces us to examine the behavioral economics of speeding. Why do rational humans voluntarily impose a massive financial penalty on themselves to drive 80 miles per hour instead of 65?

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Because we value our time. We are convinced that speeding saves us a significant amount of it.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

And that conviction is what the source brilliantly identifies as the 14-minute myth.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

The psychology of speed is deeply deceptive.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

It really is. Like when we are passing cars on the left, we feel this rush of progress.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

But human beings are notoriously terrible at intuitively calculating velocity over distance.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Let's break down the math of the 14-minute myth, because this completely changed how I view highway driving.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Let's do it. Take a standard 100-mile road trip. Okay. If you set your cruise control at 60 miles per hour, it will take you exactly one hour and 40 minutes to complete those 100 miles. Got it. Now, let's say you decide you are in a rush. You push the speed to 70 miles per hour for the entire duration. You complete the trip in one hour and 26 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

You saved exactly 14 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

14 minutes. And critically, that mathematical calculation assumes absolutely perfect sterile conditions.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Which never happens.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Never. It assumes zero traffic congestion, zero construction zones, and no stops for restrooms or fuel. In the messy reality of highway driving, traffic flow forces you to slow down repeatedly, completely neutralizing your high-speed gains.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

So your actual time saved is likely in the single digits?

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Easily.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Which brings us back to the hook of this deep dive. You have to ask yourself, is arriving at your destination a theoretical 14 minutes earlier worth actively destroying your fuel efficiency and compounding into hundreds of dollars of wasted money over the course of a year.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

You are essentially paying a premium subscription fee just to sit on your couch 14 minutes sooner.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

It is a terrible trade-off of capital for time.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

It is entirely irrational when you look at the math.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

Speaking of aerodynamics and rational choices, we have to settle the greatest debate in automotive history.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Oh, I know where this is going.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

It's a beautiful 70-degree spring day. You are driving. Do you roll the windows down to enjoy the breeze, or do you keep the cabin sealed tight and run the air conditioning? I've heard arguments for both sides my entire life.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

It is a classic dilemma because both choices introduce a parasitic loss of efficiency to the vehicle. The genius of the source report is clarifying that the correct answer is dynamic.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Meaning it changes.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yes. It changes depending on the velocity of the vehicle.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Okay, let's analyze the physics of both options. Starting with the air conditioning.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

So when you activate the air conditioning, you engage a mechanical compressor attached to the engine via a serpentine belt. Okay. That compressor requires significant physical torque to operate. The engine has to inject more fuel and work noticeably harder simply to spin that compressor. It is a constant, fixed mechanical penalty.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

Now compare that to rolling the windows down.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

When you are driving at low, urban speeds say under 40 miles per hour, the overall aerodynamic drag on the vehicle is negligible.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

So the air isn't fighting you much yet.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Right. In this low speed environment, rolling the windows down is vastly superior. You bypass the heavy mechanical penalty of the AC compressor entirely, and the relatively slow-moving air entering the cabin doesn't create enough turbulence to matter.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

But when you merge onto the inner state, the physics invert.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Dramatically. Once you cross that 50 to 60 mile per hour threshold, the air ceases to be a gentle breeze and becomes a high velocity fluid stream.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

And if you open your windows at 70 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

You destroy the engineered aerodynamic envelope of the vehicle. The high-speed air rushes into the cabin, violently impacts the rear window, swirls chaotically, and creates a massive low pressure pocket of turbulence.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

You basically deploy a parachute inside your car.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Effectively, yes. This phenomenon is known as flow separation. The aerodynamic drag created by that interior turbulence is so severe that your engine has to expend a tremendous amount of energy just to maintain your speed. Wow. At highway velocities, the extra fuel required to overcome the drag of open windows significantly exceeds the extra fuel required to simply run the mechanical AC compressor with the windows sealed shut.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

So the definitive rule is low-speed city driving, windows down, high-speed highway cruising, windows up, AC on.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Precisely. And this aerodynamic sensitivity extends to the exterior of the vehicle as well.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Oh, like roof racks.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yes. We see it constantly. People driving around year-round with massive empty cargo boxes on their roof or ski racks mounted in the dead of July.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

They want to project this active, outdoorsy lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Right. They want to look like they could spontaneously go kayaking on a Tuesday afternoon.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

It is an incredibly expensive fashion statement.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Aaron Powell Going back to the drag equation, a roof rack is a blunt, unaerodynamic structure placed in the absolute worst possible location for fluid flow. It disrupts the lamina flow over the top of the vehicle, creating turbulent wakes.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

So just taking it off saves money.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yes. The source estimates that simply unbolting unused roof racks combined with removing dead weight from the trunk, you know, the golf clubs, the bags of topsoil you forgot about, eliminates enough drag and mass to save you roughly fifty dollars a year.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

Fifty dollars annually just for treating your car like a vehicle instead of a storage shed.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 32:24

And the report makes another brilliant, often overlooked point about aerodynamics and weather. Headwinds.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Oh, this perfectly illustrates the invisibility of aerodynamic forces. We don't see the wind, so we don't factor it into our driving. But your engine feels every bit of it.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

How bad can it be?

SPEAKER_01 32:41

If you are driving on the highway at 65 miles per hour and you are pushing into a direct 20 mile per hour headwind, the relative aerodynamic velocity your vehicle is fighting isn't sixty-five. It's eighty-five miles per hour.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

The air is striking the front grille at 85 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yes. You are suddenly subjected to the exponential drag penalty of driving 85, even though your speedometer says 65.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

That's wild. So on very windy days, your fuel economy will plummet through no fault of your mechanical systems.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

The only physical countermeasure available to you is to proactively reduce your speed even further to mitigate that relative wind velocity.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

Okay, so we have conquered the physics of the open highway. But highway driving is relatively straightforward, right? It's a battle against fluid dynamics.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

It's mostly steady-state driving. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

But the real world is much messier. The day-to-day grind of urban commuting is where fuel efficiency goes to die.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

It really is.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

Which brings us to the psychology of city driving, microhabits, and the geography of errands.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

The urban environment is incredibly hostile to the internal combustion engine. And the primary culprit isn't necessarily stop and go traffic. It's how we behave when the vehicle isn't moving at all.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

We have to talk about the idling drain. The literal cost of going absolutely nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

This is a huge one.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

I know I'm incredibly guilty of this. Sitting in the school pickup line for 15 minutes, waiting in a drive-thru for a coffee, sitting in a parking lot answering emails with the engine running.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

It feels financially free because the odometer isn't moving, but it is astronomically wasteful. A modern engine at idle is in its least efficient state. It is getting zero miles to the gallon. Obviously, yeah. Depending on the displacement of the engine, an idling vehicle burns anywhere from two tenths to half a gallon of fuel every single hour.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

And people severely underestimate how quickly those small increments of time compound.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Let's run the compounding math. Let's assume you idle for just ten discretionary minutes a day. Five minutes waiting for a coffee, five minutes waiting for a spouse to run into the grocery store.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

Ten minutes feels like a rounding error in your day.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

But over a standard five-day work week, that is fifty minutes of idling, over a 50-week year, you have accumulated over 40 hours of your engine actively running while the transmission is in park.

SPEAKER_03 35:00

40 hours. That's a full work week of the engine just humming in a parking lot.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

The source calculates this passive habit burns through roughly $50 a year. You are spending $50 annually just to power your radio and the climate control while stationary.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

Which naturally leads into another massive behavioral myth regarding idling.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Warming up the car in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Oh, this one is stubborn.

SPEAKER_03 35:23

Millions of people, especially in colder climates, believe they need to start their car and let it sit in the driveway for 10 minutes before driving it to quote unquote warm up the engine.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

And the report is adamant that this is completely unnecessary for modern vehicles.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

Why did we ever start doing it then?

SPEAKER_01 35:40

It is a fascinating technological hangover from a previous era of automotive engineering. If you learned to drive in the 1970s or 80s, you likely drove a car equipped with a carburetor. Right. Carburetors were purely mechanical devices that used a venturi vacuum to mix liquid fuel with air. They were notoriously sloppy and finicky when cold. The metal tolerances were loose. The fuel wouldn't atomize properly.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

And if you tried to drive a carbureted car immediately on a freezing morning, it would sputter, hesitate, or stall completely.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

They genuinely required thermal expansion to function smoothly.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

But cars don't have carburetors anymore.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

No, the automotive industry abandoned them decades ago. Every modern vehicle utilizes high pressure electronic fuel injection. A network of sensors monitors the ambient air temperature, the coolant temperature, and the barometric pressure.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

And then a central computer calculates the exact microsecond duration to pulse the fuel injectors to deliver a perfect atomized mist into the cylinder.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

The computer adapts to the cold instantly.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Like in milliseconds.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Yes. The engine does not need to warm up to mix fuel properly. The only mechanical limitation remaining is lubrication.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Ah, the oil.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Right. When a car sits overnight, the engine oil drains down into the oil pan at the bottom. When you start the engine, you simply need to wait for the mechanical oil pump to pressurize the system and circulate that viscous oil up to the camshafts and valves at the top of the engine.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

And how long does that pressurization take on a modern synthetic oil system?

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Generally under 30 seconds. That is the entirety of your required warm-up protocol. You start the engine, buckle your seatbelt, adjust your mirrors, select your podcast, and you are ready to put the car in gear. In fact, prolonged idling is actively detrimental to a cold engine.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

Wait, detrimental how?

SPEAKER_01 37:31

An idling engine generates very little load, meaning it generates very little heat. It takes significantly longer to reach its optimal operating temperature. During this prolonged cold state, the computer runs a very rich fuel mixture, which can cause unburned fuel to wash down the cylinder walls, diluting the engine oil and increasing wear. The absolute best way to bring an engine up to its efficient thermal window is to simply drive it under a light, gentle load.

SPEAKER_03 37:59

Drive it gentle. That ties perfectly into the next major insight from the report, the concept of airin geography and thermodynamics.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Yes, because efficiency in the city isn't just about avoiding idling. It's deeply tied to how many times you allow that engine to get cold in a single day.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

This is where we get into closed loop versus open loop fuel systems. I hadn't heard of this before reading the source.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

It's vital to understand.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

So they need to be hot.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

When the engine hits this temperature, the metal components have expanded to their tightest tolerances, the oil flows with minimal resistance, and the computer enters what is called closed loop mode.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 38:46

It means it uses exhaust sensors to perfectly balance the fuel to error ratio for maximum economy.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

So a hot engine is a highly efficient engine. But a cold engine.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

A cold engine is operating in open loop mode. The computer ignores the exhaust sensors and intentionally dumps excess fuel into the cylinders to ensure combustion until the block heats up.

SPEAKER_03 39:07

It is incredibly thirsty and highly inefficient. Very now let's map that thermal reality onto human behavior. Think about how the average suburban driver tackles their weekend chores.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Oh, it's a disaster.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

At ten in the morning, you start a cold engine and drive two miles to the grocery store. The engine barely has time to reach operating temperature before you shut it off. You shop for an hour, the engine block cools down completely, you start a cold engine again and drive home.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

That is one highly inefficient cold start cycle.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Right. Then, three hours later, you realize you need something from the hardware store. You repeat the process. Start a cold engine, drive three miles, shut it off, shop, cool down, start a cold engine, drive home.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

You are systematically forcing your vehicle to operate almost exclusively in its most fuel-heavy, inefficient, open loop state. You are continually paying the thermal penalty of heating up cold metal over and over again.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

So what's the fix?

SPEAKER_01 40:01

The report calculates that simply auditing your geography, batching those five disparate weekend trips into one continuous loop radically alters the math.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Because you endure one cold start, and then for the rest of the sequence, you are driving a fully optimized, heat-soaked engine operating in closed loop efficiency.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

By eliminating redundant miles and maintaining thermal momentum, that simple geographic planning saves the average driver around $80 a year.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

It requires no mechanical changes to the car, just a minor adjustment to your itinerary. Exactly. Let's shift to a technology that bridges the gap between city planning and highway driving. Cruise control.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

This is an interesting one.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

The source acknowledges that using cruise control is generally a net positive, saving about $45 a year. And the reasoning is rooted in human physiological flaws.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Specifically, our inability to maintain a constant physical pressure with our right foot. If you hook a telemetry system up to a human driver on a perfectly flat, empty highway, you will see a jagged, erratic graph of throttle inputs.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

We subconsciously let off the gas, realize we slowed down, pressed slightly harder to accelerate, overshoot our target speed, and let off again.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

The report calls this the accordion effect. Every one of those micro accelerations requires the fuel injectors to pulse additional fuel.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

We are constantly fighting our own inertia.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Cruise control replaces that erratic human foot with a highly precise PID controller, proportional integral derivative logic. It monitors the speed sensor and applies microscopic steady adjustments to the electronic throttle body, providing a smooth, constant flow of fuel that maximizes efficiency on flat terrain.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

However, the source includes a critical caveat that demonstrates where this technology fails spectacularly. You should absolutely not use cruise control in mountainous or heavily hilly terrain.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

No, definitely not. This is where human visual anticipation beats reactive computer logic. A standard cruise control system is blind. It has no topographic awareness. Right. When a vehicle on cruise control encounters a steep incline, the speed begins to drop. The computer panics. It violently opens the throttle, forces the transmission to downshift into a higher RPM gear, and dumps massive amounts of fuel into the engine to claw its way back to the exact set speed.

SPEAKER_03 42:24

It aggressively prioritizes maintaining velocity over maintaining efficiency.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Exactly. Whereas an engaged human driver can see the hill approaching. A human can maintain a steady, efficient throttle position, deliberately allowing the vehicle to bleed off three or four miles per hour as it climbs.

SPEAKER_03 42:40

And then let gravity smoothly regain that lost momentum on the descent.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Allowing for that natural topographic variation in speed uses significantly less fuel than the brute force reactionary programming of a cruise control system.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Okay, we have thoroughly optimized the driver's habits, the thermal geography, and the aerodynamics. But what happens if the physical vehicle itself is fighting all of your good intentions?

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Then you're still losing.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

This brings us to the foundational mechanics of the car. We have to examine the ground game, tires and maintenance. Because you can drive with absolute perfection, but if the machine is physically resisting forward motion, you are still leaking money rapidly.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

It all fundamentally connects to the pavement through four small contact patches of rubber. And tire pressure is arguably the most financially destructive, neglected maintenance item on modern vehicles today.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

And the irony is it's neglected precisely because of a technology that was supposed to save us from our own laziness.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

The TPMS trap.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

The tire pressure monitoring system.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

Every car built in the last decade and a half has that little yellow icon on the dashboard, the cross section of a tire, with an exclamation point in the middle. Millions of drivers have outsourced their tire maintenance to this little light. They just drive until the dashboard yells at them.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

Which is a catastrophic strategy for fuel economy.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

It is the equivalent of relying on your kitchen smoke detector to tell you. When your dinner is done cooking. By the time the alarm finally goes off, the damage has already been done and your roast is entirely ruined.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

That is exactly how TPMS works. It is explicitly designed as a critical safety warning system, not a proactive maintenance reminder.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

People don't realize that. That is a massively underinflated tire.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

It is severely compromised. If your vehicle requires 35 PSI of pressure, that warning light might not illuminate until the tire drops to 26 PSI.

SPEAKER_03 44:39

Aaron Powell So what happens mechanically?

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Now we have to look at the physics of rubber hesperusis and rolling resistance. Think about riding a bicycle. If the tires are pumped up to maximum pressure, they are hard, they hold their shape, and the bicycle glides effortlessly down the road.

SPEAKER_03 44:53

But if you let half the air out of the bicycle tires.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

The tires sag. The contact patch, the amount of rubber touching the road, spreads out and increases. As the tire rolls, the sidewalls flex into form constantly. That continuous flexing generates massive internal friction and heat.

SPEAKER_03 45:10

It requires tremendous physical energy just to keep the pedals turning.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Driving a car with 25% underinflated tires is forcing your engine to constantly pedal a two-ton bicycle with flat tires. The rolling resistance is astronomical.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

The source data points out that proactively checking your tire pressure once a month with a high-quality portable digital inflator bypassing the TPMS light entirely saves the average driver about $60 a year in wasted fuel.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Not to mention saving you hundreds of dollars by extending the life of the tires, because underinflation shreds the outer edges of the tread prematurely.

SPEAKER_03 45:47

But here's a practical detail that trips a lot of people up. When they finally decide to manually check their pressure, they look for the target number in the wrong place. They look at the side of the tire itself.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Yes, and that is a dangerous mistake. The number stamped on the sidewall of the rubber tire is the absolute maximum pressure that specific tire can structurally contain before risking a blowout.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

It is a limitation of the rubber, not a recommendation for your vehicle.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

The engineers who designed your specific car calculated the optimal pressure based on the vehicle's curb weight, suspension geometry, and handling characteristics. That engineered number is always located on a permanent sticker inside the driver's side door jam.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Inside the driver's door jam. That is the only number that matters. And speaking of suspension geometry, the report highlights another holistic maintenance issue that creates physical drag, wheel alignment.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Alignment is critical. If you are driving down a straight, flat highway and you have to hold the steering wheel slightly off center to keep the car straight, or if the car naturally drifts into the left lane when you let go, your suspension geometry is compromised.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

The wheels are no longer pointing perfectly parallel to the direction of travel.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

They are essentially fighting each other.

SPEAKER_03 46:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

One or more tires is slightly pigeon-toed or cambered improperly. As the vehicle moves forward, it is literally dragging that misaligned tire sideways across the asphalt micromillimeters at a time. The friction generated by that dragging motion destroys fuel economy and violently scrubs the tread off the tire.

SPEAKER_03 47:18

It is the definition of a mechanical leak. Now, let's pivot to engine maintenance, specifically air filters. Because this is one area where the old conventional wisdom has been completely upended by modern technology.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Oh, the air filter debate.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

When I was a kid, the absolute golden rule of saving gas was swapping out a dirty engine air filter. My dad checked it constantly.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

And in your father's era, he was absolutely correct to do so. This goes back to our earlier discussion about carburetors. A carburetor relied on the vacuum of the engine physically pulling air through the filter to draw fuel into the intake.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

If the air filter was clogged with dirt, it restricted the airflow.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

However, the mechanical carburetor didn't know the airflow was restricted, it just kept dumping the same volume of fuel into the engine based on the throttle position.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

So the ratio got completely skewed.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Yes. The mixture became incredibly rich. Too much fuel, not enough oxygen. The engine would run poorly and fuel economy would utterly collapse. But modern electronic fuel injection, combined with sophisticated sensors, has completely changed the math.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

How does a computer handle a dirty filter differently?

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Modern engines are equipped with mass airflow, or MAF, sensors located directly behind the air filter. This sensor measures the exact volume and density of the air entering the engine in real time.

SPEAKER_03 48:37

The computer's primary goal is to maintain a perfect stoichiometric ratio, 14.7 parts air to one part fuel. So if the filter is clogged with dust and leaves, the MAF sensor detects that less air is entering the engine.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Exactly. The computer instantaneously adapts by reducing the amount of fuel injected into the cylinder to perfectly match the restricted airflow. It maintains that 14.7 to 1 ratio flawlessly.

SPEAKER_03 49:01

Wait, so a dirty air filter doesn't ruin your gas mileage anymore?

SPEAKER_01 49:04

In terms of miles per gallon, no, it remains remarkably constant. The penalty you pay for a dirty filter on a modern car is not fuel efficiency. It is total horsepower.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

Because it can't breathe as deeply.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Because the engine cannot breathe in as much total air, it cannot produce as much total power when you floor the accelerator. You absolutely should still replace your air filters for performance and engine longevity, but it is no longer the magic MPG bullet it was in 1985.

SPEAKER_03 49:31

It is fascinating. The computer outsmarts the dirt. But the computer can also be your worst enemy if you ignore it, right? The report mentions the catastrophic fuel penalty of ignoring a check engine light.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

The check engine light is often triggered by the failure of the very sensors that maintain that perfect fuel ratio, specifically the oxygen or O2 sensors in the exhaust. If an O2 sensor fails, the computer loses its ability to monitor the combustion efficiency. It goes blind.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

And what does a blind engine computer do?

SPEAKER_01 50:01

It panics and defaults to self-preservation. It enters what mechanics call a limp mode or a default rich cycle. To prevent the engine from running too lean and helting a piston, the computer intentionally dumps massive, excessive amounts of fuel into the cylinders just to be safe.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

It prioritizes keeping the engine running over efficiency.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

If you drive around for six months with a failed O2 sensor, your miles per gallon will be absolutely horrific.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

So do not put a piece of black tape over the check engine light. Fix a sensor. Let's shift gears massively here and look at a specific subculture of drivers. Because if aerodynamics, rolling resistance, and weight optimization matter for a Honda Civic, they are exponentially more critical for anyone towing a literal house behind their truck.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

We are entering the realm of the heavy haulers. RVs, travel trailers, fifth wheels, and commercial fleets. This is where the physics of everything we have discov gets multiplied by a factor of 10.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

The report calls this the RV multiplier. The baseline numbers here are just wild. They note that the average Class A or Class C motorhome gets somewhere between six to ten miles per gallon. That's rough. And if you take a standard, efficient pickup truck and hitch a heavy aerodynamic brick of a travel trailer to the back, your fuel economy doesn't just dip, it plummets by 30 to 50 percent instantly.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

You are fighting a two-front war against physics. First, you have massively increased the gross combined weight of the vehicle, which heavily penalizes your low speed urban acceleration.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

The engine has to overcome tremendous inertia just to get rolling from a stoplight.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Second, and far more destructively, you are pulling a gigantic, flat, unaerodynamic rectangular box through the fluid atmosphere at highway speeds.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

The frontal area is just massive. It's like dragging a parachute the size of a billboard. What can these drivers realistically do? They can't redesign the shape of their RV.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

No, but they can exert supreme discipline over the one variable they do control: speed. The exponential curve of aerodynamic drag we discussed earlier is punishing for a car, but it is absolutely devastating for an RV. The source breaks down a highly relatable real-world scenario: a 2,000 mile cross-country family vacation in a motorhome.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

Let's look at the math on that.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

If the driver of that motorhome insists on maintaining a speed of 70 miles per hour on the interstate, fighting that massive aerodynamic drag, they might average roughly eight miles per gallon. To cover that 2,000 mile journey, the RV will consume 250 gallons of fuel.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

250 gallons, that is a massive expense.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

Now let's apply a behavioral shift. The driver swallows their pride, embraces the reality that they are driving a house, and reduces their cruising speed to 60 miles per hour. Because they have dramatically reduced the velocity squared in the drag equation, their efficiency improves to, say, nine miles per gallon.

SPEAKER_03 52:53

One single MPG improvement doesn't sound like a lot.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Not until you stretch it over the distance. Over that same 2,000 mile trip at 9 miles per gallon, the RV now only requires 222 gallons of coal to reach the destination.

SPEAKER_03 53:07

They saved 28 gallons of fuel just by backing off the throttle.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

Exactly. At $3.50 a gallon, they are keeping nearly $100 in their pocket on a single vacation. They experience a safer, less stressful drive, the engine runs cooler, and they get paid $100 just to enjoy the scenery a bit longer.

SPEAKER_03 53:26

$100 pays for a fantastic dinner out on that vacation instead of handing it over to the gas station. And there is another massive mechanical blind spot, the source points out, for people who tow trailers. We spend a lot of time on tire pressure for passenger cars. But trailer owners have a unique, highly dangerous problem.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

Trailer tire neglect. It is rampant.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

I see this constantly. People are meticulous about their eighty thousand dollar pickup truck. They check the oil, they monitor the truck's tire pressure sensors perfectly, but the travel trailer they are towing has been sitting stationary in a dirt lot beside their house for the last eight months of winter.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Spring arrives, they drop the trailer onto the hitch, and they just drive away without a second thought.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

And this is where the chemistry of tires works against them. Rubber is slightly porous. Over those eight months of sitting idle, fluctuating through extreme winter temperatures, those trailer tires have inevitably permeated and lost significant air pressure.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

So now this driver merges onto the interstate, dragging a heavy trailer equipped with tires that are perhaps 30% underinflated.

SPEAKER_03 54:29

The rolling resistance is astronomical.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

It severely cripples the truck's fuel economy because it feels like you are towing an anchor. But the fuel penalty is actually the least of their worries. Underinflated trailer tires generate massive amounts of internal friction and heat as the sidewalls violently flex under the heavy load at highway speeds.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

That heat builds up until the vulcanized rubber structurally fails, leading to a catastrophic blowout.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

On a heavy single-axle trailer, a blowout at 65 miles per hour can instantly cause a horrific, uncontrollable accident.

SPEAKER_03 55:01

Which is why the source strongly insists on investing in aftermarket Bluetooth TPMS systems specifically for trailers.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

It is an absolutely vital piece of technology. You screw highly sensitive digital sensors onto the valve stems of the trailer tires, and a small wireless monitor sits on the dashboard of your truck. It feeds you real-time data on the exact PSI and internal temperature of every single trailer tire.

SPEAKER_03 55:25

It eliminates the blind spot.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

It does. It catches the slow pressure drops that silently kill your fuel economy over long distances, and critically, the temperature alarm will warn you of overheating bearings or flexing sidewalls long before a blowout occurs. It is a relatively minor investment that pays for itself rapidly in both fuel preservation and disaster prevention.

SPEAKER_03 55:45

Okay, we are entering the final phase of this deep dive. We have systematically addressed the micro leaks. We squeezed efficiency out of the payment transaction, optimized the engine chemistry, mastered the aerodynamics, audited our urban geography, and perfected our tire geometry. Now we pull back to the macro view.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

Because how you manage the asset of the vehicle on a high level is just as impactful as how you physically drive it.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

And the foundational rule of any systemic management, whether it is corporate finance or household transportation, is that you cannot manage what you do not accurately measure.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Data tracking, getting a baseline.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

We discussed this at the outset, but you must establish a system to track your miles per gallon over time. You can do this manually in a notebook in the glove box, calculating miles driven divided by gallons pumped at every fill-up, or you can leverage technology.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

The source specifically highlights apps like MileIQ, particularly for drivers who use their vehicle for business and need to automate the mileage tracking for tax deductions alongside efficiency.

SPEAKER_03 56:47

But beyond just knowing the number, why is the consistent tracking so critical?

SPEAKER_01 56:51

Because a sudden, unexplained deviation in your miles per gallon is the most accurate, sensitive, early warning system you have for impending mechanical failure.

SPEAKER_03 57:00

It functions like tracking the vital signs of a patient. If your resting heart rate suddenly spikes by 20 beats a minute and stays there for a week, you don't ignore it. You go to a cardiologist.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

If you are consistently getting 25 miles per gallon, and oh over three Phillips it drops to 19, something is mechanically failing. A brake caliper is seizing and dragging on the rotor, a fuel injector is leaking, an O2 sensor is dying, or a tire has a slow week.

SPEAKER_03 57:28

Exactly. If you aren't tracking the data, you remain blissfully ignorant. You just keep swiping your credit card at the pump, wondering why your budget feels tighter, while the underlying mechanical problem compounds and becomes exponentially more expensive to repair.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Which brings us to the ultimate most expensive macro decision a driver can make. The source report calls this the new car fallacy. And it is a highly relatable dilemma, particularly for younger drivers, millennials, and Gen Z who are heavily focused on monthly cash flow.

SPEAKER_03 57:57

The dreaded unexpected repair bill on an aging vehicle.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

We have all been there. You have an older car, it has 80,000 miles on it, but crucially it is completely paid off. You have the title, you take it to the mechanic because it's making a strange noise over bumps, and the mechanic hits you with a devastating estimate. You need new struts and a timing belt. The bill is $1,500.

SPEAKER_03 58:18

It feels like a massive financial blow.

SPEAKER_01 58:20

And the immediate visceral psychological reaction is defense. You think, I am absolutely not sinking $1,500 into this old junker. I am going to cut my losses, go down to the dealership, trade this headache in, and buy a brand new, highly reliable, highly fuel efficient car. It's the smart financial move because the new car gets 40 miles per gallon, so I'll save a fortune on gas.

SPEAKER_03 58:45

It is a narrative that sounds incredibly logical on the surface, but mathematically, it is a catastrophic self-deception. It is a financial disaster masquerading as an efficiency upgrade.

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Walk us through the macro numbers on this because the desire to avoid the repair bill is so strong.

SPEAKER_03 59:02

Let's dissect the transaction. You abandon the paid off car to avoid a one-time fifteen hundred dollar repair. You go to the dealership and finance a new efficient vehicle. You just sign a contract for conservatively a $500 monthly payment for the next 60 months. That is $6,000 a year in post-tax capital hemorrhaging from your budget just for the privilege of ownership.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

Well wait, the expenses don't stop at the payment.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

Not at all. Your auto insurance premiums will skyrocket because a brand new $30,000 asset costs vastly more to insure against comprehensive damage than a ten-year-old paid-off car. Your state registration and excise taxes, which are based on the value of the vehicle, will surge. And most destructively, you introduce the silent killer of wealth, depreciation. That new car will lose thousands of dollars in intrinsic value the second the tires touch public pavement.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

But the driver is sitting there thinking, yes, but I'm saving on gas every week.

SPEAKER_03 59:59

And let's quantify those savings. Going from a 25 MPG car to a 40 MPG car might save you, let's say, $400 a year in actual fuel costs, but you're spending an additional $8,000 or $9,000 a year in loan payments, elevated insurance, and brutal depreciation just to capture that four hundred dollar fuel efficiency. The math completely crushes you.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

You are stepping over $100 bills to pick up pennies.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:22

Exactly. When you amortize the cost, fixing the paid-off car for $1,500 is, in almost every conceivable scenario, wildly cheaper over a three to five year timeline than financing a new vehicle. As the source states with absolute clarity, the cheapest, most efficient car to own is almost always the one that is already sitting in your driveway, completely paid off.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

That is a tough pill to swallow when you really want that new car smell on the Apple CarPlay screen, but the math is undeniably brutal. However, if buying a new efficient car is a trap, what is the ultimate macro strategy? What if we approach fuel savings not by altering the car, but by removing the car from the equation entirely?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:03

The ultimate fuel saving strategy is the complete elimination of miles driven.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

The source dedicates significant space to alternative transportation and lifestyle design. And obviously, the holy grail of mileage elimination in the modern era is telecommuting.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:16

Working from home.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

It is a structural redesign of your transportation burden. If you have the leverage to negotiate working from home just one single day a week, you have instantly achieved a 20% reduction in your commuting costs. The math on that is deeply satisfying. Let's assume a very standard 30-mile daily round trip commute. One day a week at home eliminates roughly 1,500 miles a year. In our baseline 25 MPG vehicle, you just save 60 gallons of gas. That is over $210 a year, completely passively.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

But the capital savings extend far beyond the gas tank. By eliminating those $1,500 miles, you have actively preserved the tread life on your tires, you have delayed your next expensive synthetic oil change by months, and most importantly, you have marginally slowed the depreciation of the vehicle's resale value because the odometer is ticking upward at a 20% slower rate. You are preserving the value of the asset.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

But what if you are a listener who cannot work from home? You work in healthcare, manufacturing, or retail. The report introduces an incredibly compelling alternative for urban and suburban dwellers that bridges the gap between driving and walking, commuter e-bikes. They specifically highlight the rise of brands like Electric.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:27

E-bikes represent a fascinating shift in micromobility. They are specifically designed to attack the most mechanically and financially destructive type of driving we discussed earlier: the cold engine, open loop, short trip, urban errand.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:41

The three-mile run to the pharmacy?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

Exactly. If your commute is under five miles or you are running localized errands, replacing that car trip with an e-bike is a master stroke of efficiency. Because of the electric pedal assistance, you aren't arriving at your destination drenched in sweat, so it is viable for professional environments. You pay literal pennies in electricity to charge the battery, entirely bypassing the volatile retail gasoline market.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

And crucially, you are leaving your primary vehicle parked. You are keeping what mechanics call junk miles off the car's odometer. Those short, cold stop and go trips cause the most wear and tear on an internal combustion engine. By outsourcing those junk miles to an e-bike, you are drastically extending the functional lifespan of your multi-thousand dollar automobile.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

It is a very smart allocation of wear and tear.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

Okay, this brings us to the culmination of this incredible report. We have covered an immense amount of ground exploring physics, chemistry, psychology, and finance. Let's look at the final tally of what is actually possible.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:43

If we look back at our baseline driver, the person who stops chasing pennies across town and uses the warehouse stacking strategy, who stops pouring premium into a standard engine, who respects aerodynamic fluid dynamics by slowing down and rolling the windows up, who maintains their tire pressure in alignment, and who audits their errand geography to keep the engine hot.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

According to the source's highly conservative estimates, by implementing these systemic changes, you have unlocked over fifteen hundred dollars in potential annual savings.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:13

Over fifteen hundred dollars in post-tax capital recovered every single year.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

And I want to emphasize this point heavily because it is the core promise of the report. You achieved this massive financial victory without fundamentally altering your standard of living. You didn't buy a tiny uncomfortable hybrid. You still took the cross-country road trip with your family, you still ran all your errands, you didn't suffer. You simply patched the leaks in your system by understanding the underlying mechanics of how your vehicle operates.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:43

Which leaves us with one final, and I think profoundly powerful paradigm shift to mull over as we close.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

We love a paradigm shift. Where does this leave us?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:52

Traditionally, we view saving money on gas in a purely defensive posture. We view it as simply spending less to lessen the pain at the pump. We optimize to avoid bleeding out. But what if we completely flip the script? What if we stop viewing fuel efficiency as a chore and start viewing it as a reliable method of generating long-term capital?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:10

Okay, generating capital. How do we turn unburned gas into wealth?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

You take that fifteen hundred dollars of found money every single year. The trap most people fall into is lifestyle creep. They let that saved money passively vanish into everyday spending, buying an extra premium coffee, upgrading their streaming service tier, or eating out one extra time a month. The money just evaporates into the ether. Exactly. To generate capital, you must capture it. You automate a system where that fifteen hundred dollars in annual fuel savings is swept directly into a basic low cost SP five hundred index fund every year. You invest the gas money.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:48

Let's run the compounding math on that because this is where minds get blown.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

Think about a standard 40 year driving lifetime. From the time you were twenty five until you retire at sixty five, you're going to be buying fuel. If you meticulously capture that fifteen hundred dollars annually and invest it in the broad market, earning a historically average market return of say seven or eight percent.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:09

The magic of compounding interest over four decades takes over.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

It does. Over that forty year span, that found money money you were originally just gonna burn through an exhaust pipe grows into well over three hundred thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

Three hundred thousand dollars just from checking my tire pressure, resisting the urge to buy premium fuel and driving sixty-five instead of eighty on the interstate.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:32

Yes. That is the sheer mathematical power of redirecting capital from a depreciating liability combustion into an appreciating asset. The simple daily act of driving your car with aerodynamic and thermal precision, of treating fuel consumption as a highly managed economic variable rather than a passive leak could literally fund a massive portion of your retirement.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

That is absolutely staggering. You aren't just saving a few dollars at the pump. You are literally turning your daily commute into a wealth-building engine. You are transforming a chore into a financial portfolio. That changes everything about how it feels when you sit behind the steering wheel in the morning. It's no longer a burden, it's an opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:12

It provides a profound sense of agency. You are no longer at the mercy of the marquee sign outside the gas station. You are in control of the map.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

Listeners, we want to thank you for joining us on this incredibly deep dive into the mechanics and economics of the road. The Retire Coast Fuel Price Intelligence Center report has provided us with a phenomenal roadmap. But you don't need to implement all 82 proven ways tomorrow morning. We encourage you to take one single step, one microhabit from today's discussion. Maybe check that sticker inside your door jam and inflate your tires to the engineered pressure. Or set up a credit card specifically for your fuel purchases before your very next bill up. Stop paying the invisible subscription fees. Take control of the machine. We will catch you on the next deep dive.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:55

Well, thank you for listening. I hope that you found this as fascinating to listen to as I did, and I created it. So uh I hope that you will come back to Retire Coast and listen to some of our others. We have several hubs uh that we would want to present to the public, so we do it through Retirecoast.com. One of them, of course, is our new uh effort with the Fuel Price Intelligence Center, and we'll keep that up as long as it's interesting and it's topical. We also have our estate planning membership where you can join and you can complete all of the documents for your estate. That includes the will and the trust and all that. But more than just completing the documents with the tools, we want you to thoroughly understand each and every tool. So we have created the Retire Coast Estate Planning Academy for that purpose. There will be about 40 lessons. Each lesson has over 10,000 words. It's like going to college. And it's not that everyone needs to know everything that's in there, but if you want to know what you're doing, instead of just tossing it out to an attorney to do, uh, which is good for a review, but not for actually doing it without you understanding what they're doing. It's the same thing with someone that that is a plumber. You can have the plumber come to your house, but you're going to ask the plumber, what are you going to do? And how are you going to do it? And why am I paying that much money for it, for example? So we want you to understand every single aspect of estate planning, and that's why we did the academy for you. And the academy is free. It is an extensive collection of articles that I have written after doing much research. I understand the everything that's in there after years and years and years of not only creating my own and but working with employees at corporations I've formed and helping them along the way too. So my knowledge is there and practical experience is involved as well. And we're not we're not leaving the attorneys hanging out to dry here. Uh there's a good place for an attorney, and the attorney is to review what you have done. We're going to tell you what you need to do. The attorney will, of course, agree with that because we're telling them what what's required for a will and a trust and those things. Uh, but you we want you to take it to your attorney and have the attorney just review it. And of course, there may be some attorneys that would like to use the retired coast sending their clients to retire coast to do all the heavy lifting at home, and then the attorney can do his best work, which is use his head and help you uh go over all the documents and everything, maybe mention what might be missing, that kind of thing, and then it's done and done correctly. So that membership is great membership, it's a real bargain. We also have the millennial membership that we call the Millennial Lab, and that's for millennials and Gen Z's and Gen X's, and it's really geared for people in those age groups and income groups. A lot of tools in there to help people. For example, if you're renting an apartment with a couple of people, uh how do they how do you pay for what and who pays for this and that? And there's a tool in there that helps with that. So the Millennial Hub is great for personal finance, help you get along in life at the early stages. And then we have the business membership. One of the things I like a lot because I have owned a number of companies that I've started, and I have a great deal of experience with business in all aspects of it. So if you want to start a new business and be successful, if you have a business already and it's not doing so well and you want it to be more successful, then join the business membership. We have, again, a great deal of tools in there, a number of tools, and also a lot of information about all of the different topics involved, such as accounting and uh trusts and uh setting up your business so that people can't just walk in and take it from you. And then what if you want to sell it when you retire? Oh, what if what if you want to start a business in retirement? We have a whole series of articles in that too. Well, thank you very much for coming to Retire Coast. I hope that you enjoy our articles and our podcasts. Come back again.