Fuel Opps...

For the month of february:

~$9 worth of driving points

~$70 worth of idling points


Another 4 months and I can get a course from Rosetta Stone from the fuelopps store. Watch out Quebec

 

Yep, and I bet conway pays real money for those points most people will never use.

 

While I'd like it to be every week, on average I'm limited by my 70 about once every 3 weeks -- lets say 15 weeks/year. If I cruised at 60 instead of 65, I would get ~3500 miles those 15 weeks instead of ~3800. So instead of say 130,000 miles/year I'd get 125,500 earning ~$1800 less (40cpm) while actually driving more hours (2200 hours averaging 57mph for 125500 vs 2100 hours averaging 62mph for 130,000). $22.82 per logged hour at 60 vs $24.76 at 65. This isn't even including the miles lost on weeks where I'm not running into my 70, but would have gotten an extra or longer load by boarding sooner.

Anyway, by slowing down, my mpg would go from 7.0 to 8.25. At 125,500 miles/year and $3.75/gal, that would save Conway $8,400/year. Actually less, because they would lose the revenue from the 4500 miles I would have ran. At $1.60/mile and a 5% profit margin, that's $360. Call it 400... So by slowing down I would save conway $8000/year.


If Conway were to split that savings with me, I would earn $24.64/hour -- almost the same hourly rate as at 65mph ($24.76). But I would actually take home $2,200 more per year which would compensate for the extra 100 hours put in behind the wheel.

Even if Conway kicked back just 1/3 of the fuel savings, I would still earn $867 more/year than at 65 (though at a lower hourly rate of $24.03 per logged hour).


But what does FuelOpps offer if you slow to 60? about 750 driving "points" per week (37,500/year @ 50 weeks). Each point worth $0.01 assuming you pay full MSRP for everything. Best case $375, but at a more realistic online price of 35% off msrp: $244. And that isn't even discounting the limited utility of fuelopps points compared to cash (An Amazon gift card, for example, is only worth ~70% of face value in cash). For the record, you do also get points for not idling, but I'm just talking about the driving points you would get by slowing down.

I want to slow down. I'm from California, I went to Humboldt State -- I've got some tree hugging hippy in me. I've also worked the ND oilfields, I know just how environmentally unfriendly fossil energy extraction is... But I do like my money, & I won't be a chump that has 95% of the fruits of my labor go to someone else.