I see gas took another 10 cent jump yesterday afternoon brining the price per gallon to $3.49. Diesel quickly followed suite and raised to $4.15 a gallon, a modest 4 cent jump compared to gas.

I recently purchased an old Ford diesel pickup to replace my Chevy Duramax which I sold a few months ago. I needed something really cheap to pull my camper to the lake on the weekends until it sells. (Might as well use it if I’m paying for it…)

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this 1986 beast with 313,000 (yes thousand) miles makes just a hair over 20 mpg (actually 20.6 on the last fill) doing mostly town driving. Compare that to the 12.6 mpg my Chevy half ton gas pickup makes. (Which has recently become my daily driver ever since the transmission went out of my Monte Carlo about a month ago.)

When you break down the math, it costs about 28 cents per mile to drive the gas pickup versus 20 cents per mile for the diesel at current gas and diesel prices. Since I usually average 800-1000 miles driven per month, that adds up to $64-80 savings every month in gas/fuel costs if I drive the diesel truck instead of the gas.

I guess my daily driver is gonna switch to the rusted out 3/4 ton pickup even with fuel at over $4 per gallon as it is still the cheaper option…

Now only if that darn Monte Carlo hadn’t have bit the dust!