If you’re not taking a staycation this summer, chances are you’re driving to a nearby destination. But do you know the best ways to save money when you hit the road? The Alliance to Save Energy came up with these 13 thrifty ideas that you can put to good use on your next roadtrip.

1. Get a customized vacation map with low gas prices along the route. Getting lost while driving in unfamiliar areas could lead to an expensive waste of gas and unnecessary disputes among passengers. You can use online resources to print a customized vacation map that highlights low-cost gas stations along your route.
2. Choose the right vehicle for your trip. If your family has more than one vehicle, drive the car that gets better gas mileage if possible. (OK, so I don’t 100% agree with this advice since if you’re traveling with kids, you want to choose the car that makes your trip as pleasant as possible. In our case our crossover vehicle is less fuel efficient than our sedan, but the crossover has more space and a DVD system.)
3. When possible, drive during off-peak hours. Hitting the road at the crack of dawn or late at night helps to reduce gas costs and stress by avoiding stop-and-go or bumper-to-bumper traffic conditions. Then again, if you have to drive through a major metropolitan area, like Chicago or New York, you’re likely to find rush hour traffic on the roads at all times of the day.
4. Inflate your tires. Keeping your tires properly inflated improves gas mileage by around 3%.
5. Select the right oil. Using the manufacturer’s recommended grade of motor oil improves gas mileage by 1 to 2%. Motor oil that says “Energy Conserving” on the API performance symbol contains friction-reducing additives. Change your oil as recommended to extend the life of your vehicle. And, those taking the Drive $marter Challenge can get a $10 coupon towards the purchase of Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy motor oil.
6. Tune up your car before you leave. Fixing a car that is noticeably out of tune or has failed an emissions test can improve its gas mileage by an average of 4%.
7. Decrease your speed. Gas mileage usually decreases rapidly above 60 mph. Each five miles per hour over 60 mph is like paying an additional 20 cents or more per gallon for gas.
8. Drive sensibly. Speeding, rapid acceleration (jackrabbit starts), and rapid braking can lower gas mileage by 33% at highway speeds.
9. Use cruise control and overdrive gear. Cruise control cuts fuel consumption by maintaining a steady speed during highway driving. Overdrive gear, when appropriate, reduces engine speed, saves gas, and reduces engine wear.
10. Avoid carrying items on your vehicle’s roof. A loaded roof rack or carrier increases weight and aerodynamic drag, which can cut mileage by 5%. Place items inside the trunk when possible to improve fuel economy.
11. Turn down the AC. Operating the air conditioner on “Max” can reduce mpg by 5-25% compared to not using it.
12. Avoid idling. You get 0 mpg when your car is idling. Cars with larger engines typically waste even more gas while idling than cars with smaller engines.
13. Navigate with a GPS system. GPS systems can help you find your way and, increasingly, GPS programs can search for low-priced gas at nearby stations.

Don’t forget to bring plenty of snacks and drinks from home so that you don’t have to spend money on food at overpriced rest stops.

School’s out for summer–or it soon will be for most readers of this blog. If your house looks anything like mine, there are piles of school supplies, clothes and lunch boxes that got dumped on the last day of school.

Believe it or not, you can uncover a ton of ways to save money in a few months on back-to-school savings, just by going through those piles now. Here are 3 tricks for how the end of school can equal back-to-school savings down the road:

1. Find leftover school supplies that you can reuse next year. A great way to cut down on your back-to-school buying is to identify school supplies that you purchased the previous school year and which you can reuse the next year. Just today I found an unopened box of markers, three-ring binder and composition notebook that was on my 6th graders “must buy” list for going back to school but, it seems, the teacher never go around to using. You can bet that we’ll be reusing these items in September, should a box of markers, a three-ring binder or a composition notebook show up on the 7th grade school supply list.

2. Wash items to give them a new life. Your child’s gym clothes, lunch box and stretchy book covers may come home at the end of the year looking worse for the wear. But toss them in the washing machine and see how they turn out. I find that items that look destined for the giveaway pile often get a new life once they’ve been properly cleaned and dried. In fact, we have some book covers and lunch boxes that have been going strong now for three years, thanks to my habit of washing them at the end of the year.

3. Start consigning clothes. If your children have for sure grown out of their clothing this year, spend the next few weeks getting them ready to bring to a consignment shop. When I say “get them ready,” I mean give them a good washing, look them over for stains or tears, and make sure they’re in reasonably good shape so that a resale shop will be interested in taking them off your hands. If you can make a few bucks off of last year’s school clothes, that will be a few more bucks you’ll have in your wallet when it comes time to buy next year’s school clothes.

What are some other ways that you can find back-to-school savings at the end of the school year?

While many Americans are talking about staycations this summer, the down economy has actually made it more affordable (if you have the money) to consider taking a trip overseas. That’s why this recent tipsheet from Airfarewatchdog, an airfare deal site that lists hand-picked low airfares from online travel agencies and airline sites, on booking airfare to Europe caught my eye.

“There are five countries that are especially cheap to fly into from North America right now,” Airfarewatchdog founder George Hobica says.” They are Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Switzerland. And we’ve been finding non-stops from New York to Zurich for around $440 round-trip including tax, which is amazing!”

Here are some highlights from 4 Timely Tips & Strategies for Buying Summer Airfare to Europe:

1. Use a flexible date search on Orbitz, Cheaptickets or Hotwire. A fare from New York to Rome can be $500 with taxes on one set of dates in August, $800 on another set, and $1,000 on still another.
2. Don’t “blinder” yourself into one set destination. Get to know alternative airports, Ryanair (a super cheap airline in Europe), the rail system, and even cheap inter-city buses in Europe. For example, it may be cheaper to fly into Dublin and then grab a low-fare flight to your ultimate European destination in order to save money on the airfare. As far as alternate airports go, everyone knows Heathrow in London, and many are familiar with Gatwick. But Luton, which is about 40 minutes outside the city, often has the best rates for getting to and from Britain’s capital city.
3. Check fares every day. International fares typically only change once a day, and they do change, sometimes by hundreds of dollars up or down. Sign up for all the alert systems like Airfarewatchdog, Yapta, Orbitz, Travelocity, Kayak, Farecast and Farecompare.
4. Click over to the airline’s site to double-check the fare. Once you find a fare you like using an online booking site, check the actual airline site to compare the fares. Many international airlines don’t share their best deals with these online sties, consumers can save substantially by purchasing their tickets directly through the airline’s site. But that works in reverse sometimes, too.

Bon voyage!