Thrifty or "green"?

[redorchestra]

ocd obsessive compulsive disorder. last month it was boats, before that scooters, ukuleles, razors, comics, bikes, music... who knows what it will be next.

[Peter7307]

I do it because the subject matter is inherently interesting. And it's fun pushing the envelope - a personal challenge & educational too.

Originally Posted by redneck

Ditto for me...

The money I save is just icing on the cake.

Same for me...there is something satisfying about doing more with less.

Let's face it we do live on a "small blue dot" with limited resources and growing demands on those resources.
Facing that fact and acting as responsibly as possible is going to make a difference.

Like many here I do it for myself and if others are interested (as there are from time to time) then I am happy to share what I know with them.

If they are not interested or think it is "dumb and a waste of time" etc then I am still going to do it regardless.

Peter.

[2000neon]

Im a 1. I enjoy the challenge of pushing and tweaking the car as much as possible, but if I didn't drive so much I wouldn't be here.

[redyaris]

I voted 8 because I want to minimize my affect on futur generations. I like to blame government and industrey as much as the next guy, but I have only a very small influence on them and no control to speek of. I do have the control of that guy looking back at me in the mirror, and if I want others to reduce there wastfullness and there inpact on the envirnment I had better be doing the same myself! how much money I save is a conveniant way to messure my progress along the way...

[t vago]

I do this to save money, and because it's a challenge.

[jtbo]

I'm curious and very competitive, I compete with myself to get lowest possible fuel consumption and I'm curious to see how small consumption I can get.

Also I'm curious about how things work and I compete with myself to improve designs that car maker or I have done so that I can make old be better than new.

But saving a euro is also great thing, so to make thing interesting, I try to make all mods without spending much or anything at all, using things that have been thrown away, to make improvements as any spent money would need to be earned back and it might be challenging with bits that lower consumption just a tiny bit.

It is large puzzle where every piece must be thought out, that makes it an interesting game for me.

But I don't know what I am.

[larrybuck]

Many, many good thoughts I'm reading here.

I started driving when gas was pretty cheap . (early 70's)
Being young, I wasn't super concerned about mpg, but still somewhat conservative.

My first car had a small block V8. I already didn't want to pay big block fuel rates.

I had a couple big blocks later, but not as only cars.

Its like a healthy diet bank account: Eat healthy 90%, enjoy the other 10%
You are allowed to make FUN withdrawals from your account.
(I actually food wise, am 99.9% healthy only now, because I want to be in great shape, versus average shape)

I enjoyed having a Pantera, but could only afford to drive it about once every month or so; a Datsun 510, or a smallish motorcycle were my daily drivers.

$$, and the lack of it, were my early causes of conservative driving.

Later, it became my comfortable normal.

There is this thing about facts when you realize them. They don't go away!

Once that I learned that going over 55mph. would start dropping my mpgs quickly,
I accepted my education.

I've always had more time than money.

I also don't like to see blatant waste!

Its very easy to judge others, but some of us aren't critical enough to ourselves.

If you learned somehow that you were going to die in 6 weeks; would you still be doing 50mph on the freeway, or would you be canyon carving somewhere?

I'm wired pretty conservatively. It's a nice thought to want everyone greening
for future generations, but it is my belief that the future time here as we know it right now, is not a lot longer.

World events, and human behavior aren't pointing to a happy days modern '50's
everythings coming up roses reality.

Green is ok, but the Nazi Green isn't, and I hope that most of you know the difference.

I have been driving DOUBLE GREEN for many, many years, now!

If I suddenly become rich, I might build cars where I could go normal (un-ecomodder
speeds on freeways) speeds like the UNcivilians out there, but still knock down
well over 50mpg.

My vote was a 6, because my life has more than 1 dimension to it!

[ecomodded]

For me it is more than the money saved, which is substantial
and a huge benefit of owning a economical car.
The hypermiling is something i do to extend the distance i can drive on a tank. Just buying a economical car saved me most the money, the hypermiling is a labor of love, pet project? it is really natural now, If driving other peoples cars and trucks I hypermiling them to, just out of habit and knowledge. A lot of the hypermiling tactics that we do manually are built into some of the hybrid/ electric cars, we are compensating for our inferior ICE management systems.

voted 9 , if it was free who knows what i would be doing now and where i would be driving too.

[bobo333]

im mostly in it for saving money but being eco friendly interests me also, i voted 3

i had a lengthy debate with my housemate about saving money yesterday actually, we decided that he would rather work harder to spend more and id rather spend less so i dont have to work as hard

[user removed]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Not to get into a political debate, but I do wish people would start realizing that it's perfectly possible to be an environmentalist without also being a liberal.

And the very essence of the word conservative is to conserve. In reality it's like calling someone black or white, neither is either.

regards
mech