Category Archives: Transport

A great bus service

Caron from the Waikato writes, I wasn’t able to use my car for several days so was nudged into investigating the excellent bus service in my city. I downloaded the bus timetable app onto my phone which tells me how many minutes away the next bus is. I can pretty well get to most of […]

Frugal motoring

Petrol prices are on the rise and more people are now considering switching to electric vehicles. Each year the Inland Revenue Department calculates the cost per kilometre of operating a vehicle, which includes the fixed costs and depreciation and running costs. The good news is that the cost of an electric vehicle has gone down […]

Sharing and caring

By Frank and Muriel Newman It’s amazing how many money saving and money making opportunities are springing up from the IT revolution. The buzzword is “connectivity”. It’s now so much easier to connect with folk without moving our lips, which is a remarkable thing! Here’s an example. Harriet from Brisbane writes, “Use the Kerb app […]

Kerb app

Harriet from Brisbane writes, “Use the Kerb app to park or lease a space to save money on parking or earn money renting a space you don’t use!” www.kerb.works

Pinging and petrol

TB from Blenheim writes, “On the face of it, then, a motorist would seem ill-advised to use regular petrol in a car with a high-compression engine. That was certainly the case in the past. But cars today have sensors that listen carefully for the knocking sound, and instantly retard the ignition system when they detect […]

Gaspy APP

Paul writes, “On the subject of motoring costs, a frugal traveller recently reported that they save quite a lot of money by shopping around for the petrol stations with the lowest fuel price. ‘I have found the Gull self-service stations the cheapest by far. On a recent trip to the Bay of Plenty we saved […]

Frugal disruption

Uber is one of the new breed of companies known as a “disrupter”. These are businesses that are so innovative that they seriously threaten the viability of an established industry. For those that don’t know, Uber is like a taxi service, but it differs from traditional taxi companies in a number of ways. Most significantly, […]

D.M, Katikati.

I found out from my pensioner neighbour that Monday to Friday, around 9am, I can catch a free bus (because I am a pensioner) outside my house and travel to Tauranga, returning about 2.30pm. Whilst in Tauranga I can travel free anywhere the yellow buses go. e.g Papamoa,Bethlehem, Welcome Bay, etc. The Katikati bus is […]

Tyre codes

Before you go about buying tyres, it might pay to know a little about what you are buying. The tyre has a lot of hieroglyphics actually say something. Here’s an example. The tires on a Toyota Corolla might be labelled: P175/65R14 81H ‘P’ stands for passenger vehicle. 175 – The width of the tire is 175 […]

P.L., Auckland.

It’s possible to cut travel costs and enjoy driving free rental cars and camper vans in New Zealand by checking out the online transfer deals. Most of the time drivers also receive a free tank of petrol! How does this work? Rental car companies need to reposition their fleet for new hires and usually spend […]